I just finished reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and was quite impressed. I guess the fact that I managed to find time to quickly read a whole trilogy in the space of a couple of weeks should say something about the page-turnability (hey, I made up a word!) of these novels. I like the anti organized religion stance found within as well. Pretty cool for trilogy aimed at young adults. I had originally thought it might be fun to read them to Lexy and Nate, but after finishing them I think I'll have to wait until they're older. Lexy would be too disturbed by the children-in-jeopardy threads that run through this and bind it together. The ghosts and some of the other revelations would probably send him over the edge as well. Too bad though, because I'd really love reading this out loud.
Apparently some christians want these books burned. Typical. Don't agree with something? Set it on fire! A little extreme, I think...

In the real world, today we went to that rat pizza place for The Dickens' 4th birthday party. I chased Willow around for two hours as she visited all of the different arcade games and little coin operated vehicles again and again. All of the whirring and beeping and mechanized voices of the machines provided a backdrop of sensory overload that kept gnawing at the base of my skull like a persistant parasite. Willow didn't seem to notice. She didn't actually seem to be interested in playing or riding anything either. Just running. The Dickens got to hug the rat, and everybody ate the limp, tasteless pizza and the cake with the 150% sugar content. A couple of hours later we escaped back into the sunlight.

Rented some DVDs to watch tonight. Waiting for the little people to descend into slumberland.

Oh, and I've started posting photos here. Check it out.

Today I went on my last long hike of the school year. I'm looking forward to working summer camps later this month. It will also give me some time to step back and take a breath. During this breath, I plan to make some new, laminated cards to go along with the games I play with my classes. At the moment, I'm still using either hand-me-down cards, or non-laminated ones that I made up quickly. I've been busy cutting out pictures from the stack of calendars that I've amassed over the years. Soon they will be turned into various game and solo-hike cards for me to use over the summer and into the fall.

And here are today's pictures. A small Pacific Giant Salamander found hiding under a large log. It moved pretty quickly for a salamander...




And a large Banana Slug, folded neatly in half for convenience.

Yay! I puttered around and got my comment thing fixed. Not that I get a lot of comments, but what the hell...

I did my last night hike of the season tonight. Not that it was actually at night. The 7 to 9 window lets in to much sun this time of year. Add to this the fact that we still aren't allowed to let the kids do solo walks in the evening and you get a much different experience. I doubt our resident Mountain Lion would actually eat a kid anyway. I read somewhere that people taste pretty nasty. Especially if you think about all of the junk most people eat.

We are what we eat, I guess. That means most kids are lunchables. Overly packaged and shot full of preservatives. Yuck.

Oh, and the Tarantula likes me again (see picture from three weeks ago). I guess he forgot that he was mad. Spiders have such short memories.

After a long weekend during which very little was accomplished, I'm working my last week of outdoor school before the summer camp season starts.

Tonight, we all went up to the school so the kids could see the campfire program. It was still warm after sunset, and swallows flitted here and there, looking like bats. Willow ran around a lot, trying to climb fences and poles. The Dickens, who had fallen asleep in the van on the way up, groggily woke up about halfway through the program. Nate darted here and there. Lexy sat and watched the program. One out of four isn't too bad, I guess.
Jen and I switched off caring for the girls, trying to keep them quiet. With little kids it's more about damage control than everything else. At least this time the damage was controlled, and everybody had a good time.

At home, it's uncomfortably warm. The snakes are all crawling around in their cages looking for ways out. I think I'll go read for awhile. Goodnight.

It's partially cloudy today, after a week of sunshine and warmth. There's a squirrel sitting on the fence outside my window, chewing on a nut or some other food item favored by squirrels. Okay, now it's just staring at me. News update: now it's gone. Ah, the transitory nature of wildlife viewings...

And now, a small, improperly lit picture of a Dobsonfly nymph.




Lovely little creatures.

And here's an old, overturned Redwood stump big enough to crawl through. If you crawl through it nine times you enter faerieland. Maybe.




Magic is what you make of it. Celebrate the unexpected.

(this is Jen, commandeering the blog to bring you this important information. and because the people it's intended for DONT READ MY BLOG not that I care or anything.)

If you live in the SF bay area, you can buy tickets to see our friend M perform in August. Surprised?

Also, we keep seeing toronto-related things and we hate you.

xoxoxojen

We went slightly farther than I've ever been before on a Thursday hike today, deeper into the Redwood grove a thousand feet in elevation above the school. By the time we got back, most of the kids were dragging their feet and complaining. There's this one girl that just smiles and thanks me at the end of every hike as she bounces past me. Today was no exception. In general, I've got a very good group of kids this week.

Next week is my last week of science school before summer camp madness sets in. The trails are all much more dry and the mosquitos, flies, and gnats are swarming. Instead of the 50 newts we saw on the same trail a few weeks ago, we saw one. The Alligator lizards are everywhere too.

There are still millipedes out and about. This is the kind that glows under a black light.




One of the girls found a Dobsonfly nymph in the creek too. Very strange looking creatures. I took a couple of pictures but they didn't turn out too good. I might post one anyway. We'll see. I also took a picture of a dead shrew the kids found on the trail, but it turned out blurry. Oh well, you probably didn't want to see it anyway.l

Nobody got eaten by a Mountain Lion on the night hike tonight. Perhaps this is because we lit a candle at the Jabba rock.
Jabba rock is a large, sedimentary rock that has been weathered away to look sort of like Jabba the Hut. Or like Elvis, depending on your point of view. I lit a candle in the mouth and one of the eyes, making it look a bit like a Jack-O-Lantern. It made the atmosphere in the twilight woods even more mysterious than it usually is. The possibility of a large predator lurking somewhere nearby added even more spice to the hike.

At home, the kids are getting feverish again. Nate has an ear infection. Here we go again...

After I go home from work in the evening, the campers are under the care of the night host. He's a gentle guy with a calm voice who has been doing this kind of work for years. His job is to be in charge of the camp when everybody else is sleeping. One of the things he occasionally has to do is scare Raccoons away from the area near the dining hall. Last night he heard some sort of commotion in the bushes near the dumpsters, which he thought might have been Raccoons fighting. Then it sounded more like a Raccoon dying. He went over to investigate and heard something large moving through the bushes in the darkness beyond the dumpsters. He made some noise to scare it away and was answered with a low, rumbling growl.

Needless to say, he didn't stick around to see what the growl belonged to. Perhaps a Mountain Lion upset at being interrupted while having a Raccoon snack.

We've decided not to let kids do the solo walk on the night hike tomorrow. Some of these kids aren't much bigger than Raccoons.

Here's a large Pacific Giant Salamander nymph. It's the size of an adult, but it still has gills. Apparently, some of them never go through metamorphosis.




And here's some sun kissed Poison Oak. Some time last week I touched some. I itch a bit.




Someday I'll figure out a way to stop kids from calling it "Poison Ivy." Someday.

Without warning, summer has descended upon us. The windows are all open to cool down the house, and the kids show no sign of getting tired. All of the late light and hot heat is making them restless. We don't really get much of a break around here when the kids keep the same hours as the grownups.

G and M, fresh back from a trip to Vienna earlier this month, are departing for Toronto later this week. I must confess to being a bit jealous. I miss travelling.

I did see a coyote towards the end of last week. Trickster spirit? Seeing wild animals, regardless of what legends/mythologies they're associated with, is always a spiritual experience. They are reminders of a time when people were more connected to natural cycles.

Speaking of animals, one of my coworkers who sleeps up at the school was awakened over the weekend by the cry of a Mountain Lion. She said it sounded like a woman in ecstacy. I've also heard that they can sound like a baby crying. I may decide against letting the kids do a solo walk during the night hike this week, just to be safe.

The kids this week are much more well-behaved than the bunch we had last week. We have better teen volunteers watching over them as well. That's not to say that last week was all bad. There were some really cool kids in my group, at least.
Today I found a family of mice and a small tarantula co-existing under a section of corrugated iron siding. I caught the tarantula and then spent a good deal of time chasing it across my own body as it decided to hide under my backpack and in my hair. I finally caught it when it took refuge in the crotch of my jeans. Good thing it didn't try to bite.

Time to go get the boys to bed now.

I went and saw a couple of shows this weekend, which turned out to be a wonderful way to recharge my batteries. On Friday, M and I went to the Great American Music Hall in S.F. to see Dot Dot Dot (ex Ninewood), Faun Fables, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. SGM's set included a ten foot, benevolent sun god puppet which swayed and danced its way through the audience. Shinichi was also on hand for some flawless butoh dancing during most of the set. Just beautiful. G, M and I even got to be part of the procession that forced its way through the crowd to the stage. We all chanted in unison with the strange christian cult blather coming over the PA system as we advanced through the bewildered crowd. Aim to confuse.

Saturday saw me in a park in Sunnyvale, making slime. This was in conjuntion with the Hands on the Art festival - some sort of child friendly city-centric arts/crafts festival. More than five hundred cups of slime were made during the morning and early afternoon. I left when we ran out of materials.
That night I drove up to the City again to see Om and Six Organs of Admittance. I got there early enough to wander up the hill under a waxing moon and get a tasty mocha at a little coffee shop called Farley's. The show itself was at The Bottom of the Hill, which is one of my favorite venues in the City due to the availability of parking and the fact that Farley's is up the hill. Pretty mellow neighborhood too. I ran into some old friends inside the club, including one who I went to high school with. We reminisced about getting into trouble and complained about getting old for awhile. Of course, the fact that he was both drinking and chain smoking wasn't helping him any. I think I've had my yearly allotment of second hand smoke now. In the distance, towards the bay, there was a massive fireworks display illuminating the sky and shaking the air. Not sure why. Soon afterwards, Six Organs put on a stunning set, which was much more varied than the one I saw in Toronto last year. The music ranged from delicate, fluid acoustic guitar to savage bursts of noise produced by electric guitar and drums. At several stages, the sound was either looped or provided by backing tapes, providing some interesting interplay of sounds. Their set ended in a massive, hypnotic chant that left me wanting much more. Soon Om hit the stage and I could literally feel the sound waves wash over me. The air vibrated. Pretty good for just bass and drums.

Today we're trying to clean up the house and yard. Almost time for another week to begin.

It misted again all day today, making the long hike (a Thursday institution) quite beautiful, with groves of Coast Live Oaks made indistinct by fog. Down at camp, lots of kids got in trouble and had to be sent home, making this one of the most difficult weeks so far in terms of behavior problems. These kids are paired up with some pretty ineffective cabin leaders as well, so chaos often reigns. I kind of lucked out with my group though. The most difficult kid I have to deal with is this girl who does nothing but whine, sometimes contradicting herself with her own complaints. It's kind of amusing, really.

Here's a small picture of the Alligator lizard who tried to hide up under the van.




Here's a big picture of the Gopher snake I caught today.




I was surprised to see it out in this kind of weather. I guess it is half past May, but it sure doesn't seem like it.

More later.

It's warm and stuffy inside, but outside it's cool and the moon is bright. Sometime around the full moon, later this month, I'll get another cd in the mail because I get one every time there's a full moon. How clever.

It was supposed to rain today, but while I was at work, only a light mist fell. This was a welcome addition to the uphill hike we took this afternoon.

When I got home from work, there was an Alligator lizard in the driveway. I jumped out of my car and attempted to catch him but he ran under the van. In short order, he was up inside one of the wheels. After some persistant poking and prodding from me, he abandoned this vantage point and started running along the undercarriage. About ten minutes later, with my hands and arms black with oil and grease, I finally caught him.
It's strange to see an Alligator lizard in our neighborhood. Suburbia is unkind to reptiles. Cats love to kill them. With this in mind, I'm trying to decide what to do with him. I'll probably end up introducing him to the organic garden at work. It'll prolong his life and help control our bug population. Then again, he survived to adulthood around here, so maybe I should just let him go again in the backyard or something. What a dilemma.

Oh, and here's a picture of another sort of reptile I have to keep relocating.

This week I'm back at the other site. We've got a camp full of kids with behavior problems too. These kids just don't listen very well, and often just wander around aimlessly until they're reminded about what they're supposed to be doing. Some of the kids cuss and throw things at each other. This is all expected behavior. I was the same way when I was that age. Unfortunately, the majority of the cabin leaders (teenaged volunteers) this week are ineffectual. Some of them have gone so far as to allegedly misbehave right along with the kids in their cabins.

This made my night hike much easier tonight, because all of the boys in my group were busy explaining to their teachers why there was so much chaos in their cabins. So instead of having 21 kids, I had a mere 11 girls to lead through the twilight.

I also ended up having to relocate a couple of Rattlesnakes today. Two babies were found in and around the camp. They are now a more comfortable distance from the cabins.

Here's a photo left over from last week. More to follow.




S is for snake.

At home, we finally got DSL. No more spending precious time waiting to get a connection. Jen's got a bad headache right now, which just isn't fair. I wish George Bush had it instead. The kids are all asleep. The sky is cloudy, with the possibility of rain looming. Much more to do everywhere. How I ramble...

It's now warm enough to have the windows open in the evenings. The cool breeze feels good. We have to keep a close watch on Willow though, because she likes licking the screens, a habit no doubt learned from her sister.

I'm well into the final month of teaching outdoor school for the season. Summer camps start up in June. We're still juggling finances a bit, but hope to have things running more smoothly soon, barring unforseen money pits.




When you're feeling troubled, pick up a leaf and stare at it for awhile. Reflect on it. Make a wish. Sing a song to it. Notice that everyone else is staring at you. Put the leaf down.

Big picture thinking. That's what we need.




I can't custom size these photos anymore, and the next smallest size is too small. I kind of like them this size though. Above is a small adult Pacific Giant Salamander. I was pretty excited about it, and so were the kids. The salamander itself was less than thrilled, and quickly ran back under some bark after I finished playing paparazzi.



Speaking of less than thrilled, here's the resident tarantula exhibiting some classic defensive behavior, rearing back and displaying some formidable fangs. I think it's getting tired of my weekly visits.

More soon.

The new computer sometimes decides not to let us online. Tonight it was merciful.

I've seen a couple of new things this week so far. Yesterday we stopped near an old landslide area in a place known as Overlook Grove. On the ground was the biggest pile of scat that I've ever seen. The kids were very excited. I whipped out my measuring tape and measured it (over six inches long) and the kids got sticks and dissected it, finding a lot of animal hair and a foul stench in the process. It could only be Mountain Lion scat. Either that or there's a Bobcat with a sore butt somewhere nearby. It looked pretty fresh too. Kind of exciting. It was really cool to see the kids so enthusiastic over what was essentially a big pile of crap. Future wildlife biologists, every one.

I finally found another adult Giant Salamander too. The last one I found was a California Giant Salamander. Today's find was a Pacific Giant Salamander. As soon as I figure out how to resize photos with the current software I'll post pictures.

The weather has turned sunny too, with occasional fluffy clouds drifting over the hilltops. Tonight's crescent moon was outlined by earthshine, giving the kids something nice to look at as we finished our night hike (not really a night hike a this time of year, due to the fact that only the last ten minutes of it are after dark...)

How crepuscular.

We all went to a summer school open house at my work on Saturday just to let the kids run around and tire themselves out. Oh yeah, I guess I'm getting paid for it too. Lexy brought a new friend along who turned out to be very polite and friendly, even going so far as to be nice to The Dickens, which is unusual for a second grade boy. The Dickens has a way of trying the patience of elementary school children.
Jen mostly hung out around the school with Willow, while the older kids went on a hike with one of my co-workers. I led a hike as well, bringing a mixture of parents, fifth/sixth graders, and teenaged volunteers up into the hills. We saw a variety of cuddly creatures. Avid wildlife viewers got to see a tarantula, a tick, and a scorpion, making the hike unintentionally arachnid-themed. Okay, that's a bit of a lie - only the tick was unintentional. Think of it as an added bonus.
At some point, Willow got smacked in the head by a basketball, and later managed to bloody her lip climbing one of the food carts parked outside the dining hall. Other than that, she had a blast and everybody loved her.
The good thing about this outing is that we managed to keep all five of the kids entertained, and I got paid for it. I wish we could arrange something like this every weekend.

That evening I drove up to Stanford to meet up with a couple of old friends, Wayne and Rich. I hadn't seen Wayne in about a decade, so it was pretty cool to catch up with him. He's been working at Stanford, helping convert their vast archives of secret microfilms into digital information. Or some such. He goes to Geneva every year where the curse of the Swiss works upon him, giving him achy teeth, broken bones, and gallstones. Rich works at a computer company, telling Luddites where the "on" switch is and explaining to them the wonders of electricity. He brought his son and his son's friend along too. We all hung out with Big Chief at the Stanford radio station and made asses of ourselves on the air. It was like being 18 again, when we all went to heavy metal shows wearing our smelly denim and leather jackets and probably acting a lot sillier than we thought we were. It was all quite fun though. Lots of memories there.

Sunday we went to the Tech museum, which was sort of like being blindfolded and chasing chickens around on the freeway. The kids all had very specific ideas about what they wanted to do there, and rushed this way and that like hyperactive Kangaroo Rats. Tiring
That night we had lots of ice cream and cookies and pie at Ashley and James' place. Very good.

Today brought spurts of rain and sporadic sunshine. A new week of campers began. Our lead teacher just had a baby girl, who was born on 5/5/05 at 5:50 PM. Maybe she's the new messiah or something. Messiah or not, the pictures I saw were pretty cute.

The mailman stopped by and told Jen that some guy in the neighborhood walked out into the street and killed himself with a shotgun a morning or two ago. I can't help thinking about the kids who would have been walking to school at about this time. One of the only things more antisocial than killing yourself is killing yourself in the middle of a quiet, suburban street. Sad.

Speaking of sad, I found out in a round-about way that one of the kids in my field class this week lost his dad three weeks ago. I never would have known it. This kid is involved with the lessons, even if sometimes his language is a little inappropriate. He cracks jokes. He gets in minor amounts of trouble, just like most of the other fifth and sixth grade kids who come through. The information really made me pay closer attention to him today. He was genuinely interested in the lessons I taught this morning, and told me as much. Later, he exclaimed in delight as a large millipede crawled across his hands. I keep thinking that he's got a world of hurt to go back home to though. Once the distraction of science camp is over, he goes home to a life that is emptier than it was three weeks ago. It probably hasn't fully hit him yet. Kids sometimes have to deal with so much...

On a more light-hearted note, our class counted fifty California Newts on the hike today.

Most of the way through the week already. It has been raining since mid-afternoon. We're still figuring out (okay, Jen's really doing most of the figuring - I'm just reaping the benefits) the new computer. It doesn't always let us online when we want. I couldn't figure out how to resize photos either, but Jen just solved that little problem. I think. Let's see.




This is a Ringneck snake. It has a corkscrew for a tail. Not good for opening bottles of wine though. Better for fooling predators into thinking you're poisonous or taste like old socks.

Inspired by an article in Bay Nature magazine, I licked a Banana slug last week. Actually, come to think of it, this action is referenced in one of our most popular camp songs as well... Anyway, they do not taste like bananas. Their slime also numbs lips and tongues. Interesting.

Over the weekend, while driving north on the freeway, I witnessed a guerrilla marketing incident. Traffic was slow, and I noticed that the passenger door of the car in the lane to my immediate left was slightly ajar. As I watched, a man jumped out of the slowly moving car, jogged past it and slapped a poster on the rear of the next vehicle up, which just happened to be a Winnebago. Winnebagos, of course, have a large blind spot, so nobody in it was any the wiser. The man quickly jumped back in his car, which then accelerated into the other lane and disappeared into the flow of traffic beyond the Winnebago. The poster was for some hip hop cd, which I won't buy, but I do applaud the innovative advertising campaign.

At home, the big kids were away at their dad's house, so Jen, Willow, and I relaxed. We've been monkeying around with the new computer, which, wonder of wonders, joy of joys, has a functional cd burner! It's keeping us well occupied.

Oh, I guess I didn't entirely relax. I did a couple of birthday parties and I picked up a bunch of volunteer cabin leaders for this week's camp. Extra money never hurts. The fact that there never really is any extra money does though.

The rain mostly managed to fall in between the times when I was out hiking with my field class today. It soaked the ground and enticed a fair amount of newts and Banana slugs to come out and play.

On the night hike, I once again fed wintergreen lifesavers to the kids, telling them that they were eating freeze dried glow worms. Many of them believed me. This is something we do every week. Different field instructors make up different stories, some of them more believable than others. I always start my story by mentioning the time I found a glow worm during a night hike, and then continue it by talking about how I mentioned it to an entomologist friend who just happens to be studying glow worms. The glow worms he's studying are being raised on mint leaves. It's their favorite food. Tonight I added a bit about how he's also a taxonomist who freeze dries the glow worms so he can extract their DNA in order to decide how to classify them. The upshot of the story is that one day he accidentally eats one and discovers that it tastes wonderfully minty. Later he discovers that they give off sparks when he bites down on them in the dark.

I tell the kids that my friend gave me some of the glow worms. I then offer them around. Every week, there are a few kids who won't eat them.

The sparking is a phenomenon called tribo luminescence. Try it.

It's almost May. I must have blinked, but the last time I looked it was the middle of winter. I'm now in the middle of trying to pin down my summer schedule. I may be working at two different summer camps, or just one with some painting/construction work on the side. I'll know by the end of the week.
Right now I'm tired. My work is fun, but I expend a lot of energy doing it. Working with kids (or other adults, for that matter) is always kind of draining. I haven't done anything new this week yet either. I've been making sure to do at least one new thing every week, just to keep things interesting. This week I've been feeling lazy. We've got three different schools up, one from San Francisco. The kids are pretty good, although I've got a couple of name-callers in my group. I know this because they keep having the bad sense to harass the girl who's a tattle-tale.

Not much else going on at the moment. The van's transmission was acting up, so Jen put some transmission fluid in it. We know it was low, but still haven't really figured out if that's the extent of the problem. Hopefully that's all there is to it. Uh oh, I've been reduced to writing about car complaints. I'll stop here.

A storm whipped in out of nowhere early Friday afternoon, and we've had unsettled weather since then. There hasn't been much rain, but the wind has been impressive.

I did another party this weekend at one of those big, snazzy homes in the hills. This one had a deck out back from which I could see the whole valley. It makes me wonder if the people who live there take the view for granted. After living in such a house for a time, how often does a person stop and admire the view? Truly a different world up there in the hills in the playgrounds of the morbidly rich. That said, this particular family treated me well. In addition to a nice tip, I got a whole pizza to take home. Good pizza too. No cheap pizza for the rich.

The rest of the weekend was taken up cleaning and dashing back and forth to grocery stores and libraries. I watched the Mummy Returns last night. I guess I was in the mood for some flashy brain candy. I got what I expected - a movie that resembled an amusement park ride, enjoyable but kind of pointless and forgettable at the same time. Some cool looking mummies though.
I also got a couple of F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack novels, which I'm glad the library actually had on hand. I really like that I didn't have to buy the damn things. Hardbacks are so expensive now. We don't have any space for more books on the shelves anyway.

My mom came over today too, bringing books for nearly everybody. And these we don't have to take back in three weeks. It is kind of nice that even when we're totally broke, libraries and moms are there to help out with literature.

We've gotten a new computer, thanks to Uncle Jay who works at a work where the high tech Joneses must be kept up with. The Joneses all got new computers, so the old computer, which is still much newer than our computer, is now sitting on our desk here in our room. Yay.

I worked the Thursday night program this week, which isn't my favorite. It's set up like Jeopardy, except all of the questions are 5th/6th grade science standard based. Afterwards, the kids get to dance, which is fun. I'm just not much of a dancer myself, at least not to the kind of music deemed appropriate for a sixth grade dance.

Wednesday night, during the night hike, I told the kids the myth I made up a couple of weeks ago. They quietly listened, and just as I finished there was a soft hooting from the tree directly behind me. We looked up and saw that a small owl was listening in. It flew off when it realized it had been spotted. It added a bit of magic to the whole experience.

There are bats living near the staff room too. One of my co-workers pointed them out to me earlier. Neat.

A moment ago I discovered that the tickling sensation down by my ankle was indeed... a tick. I've been home from work for hours, so I wonder if my unwelcome little guest has been hanging out on my leg for that long. It's not a Deer tick though, which is good. Deer ticks are the ones that transmit Lyme disease... unless of course they've been gorging themselves on the blood of a Fence lizard, in which case they lose the ability to transmit it. Strange but true.

Anyway, I finally got a picture of a Giant salamander larva.

This one is still quite small, but growing. You can see the gills right in front of the front legs.

I'm still kind of sick, but not sick enough to stay home from work. The week has been going pretty well so far. Today was warm and sunny, and I really just felt like lying down on the grass and doing nothing - just letting the sun wash over me. Instead I taught the usual lessons to a more-or-less attentive group of children, and hiked around with the class following after. We even came across a dead Ringneck snake. Something had eaten its head, and the ants were investigating. Nature is brutal. And beautiful. All at once.

Four staff, including myself, from the outdoor school I work at carpooled in one of the company vans up to the AEOE convention. For once I wasn't driving, which was kind of nice. We got to the convention site at Walker Creek Ranch sometime around five on Friday, and got right to work by becoming the greeting committee, complete with funny hats and chocolate to hand out to people as they drove in. The rest of the weekend went by pretty fast. The food in the dining hall was phenomenal, the workshops were good, the people were nice, and the campground was pretty crowded. I ran into a few people that I'd worked with at previous jobs, but not the ones I expected to see. We went on a really nice hike up through a beautiful forest of Bay Laurel and fern. I saw a Western Racer, which is a snake I haven't seen in the wild since my high school snake catching days. It is an aptly named snake, and shot down a hole before I could catch it. Much slower was the Gopher snake we came across later, which just sat there and allowed us to pick it up without protest. The trail led up to a summit dotted with cows and large, jiggly fungi. It looked like the former had been dining on the latter. Of course, everybody had an opinion on everything we came across, because everybody on the hike was a naturalist. Most of us were outdoor school employees. One of my coworkers noted the tendency of members of the group to "blurt the spiel" as enthusiasm waxed over bits of lichen or scat. We were all obviously used to orating in front of groups of elementary school students.
I finally got to camp out under the stars again, which I've been meaning to find the time to do. There's nothing quite like laying on one's back in a sleeping bag and staring up at the stars. It was also nice to see all of the wild turkey strutting around, with the occasional rooster thrown in for good measure.
On the down side, I spent the whole weekend with a runny nose and the general lack of energy that comes with having a low-grade cold. Since then, it's developed into a sinus infection. I also wish that I'd known in advance about the photo contest being held. Oh well.
The various speakers and other people I met gave me things to think about, which I won't blather on about here. It is interesting to see a large chunk of the outdoor education community come together, and to realize that there are many similarities between the various schools.

I got home late on Sunday afternoon, and got to spend the rest of the evening with just Jen and Willow, since the three older kids were still at their dad's house. It was nice to get a little down time before the heathens once again descended. Of course, Willow is quite the little heathen herself these days. She's also got a bigger vocabulary and more teeth all of a sudden. Now if we could only figure out why her extremities sometimes turn purply blue.

Today everythings back to normal. Everybody is home. A new work week has started. We started off the week by finding several scorpions and one of the opportunistic, puddle dwelling Garter snakes swimming amongst the tadpoles. Most of the tadpoles now have their legs, which is good because the puddle they're living in is nearly gone.

Hopefully I can hang in there this week. Sinus infections are uncomfortable.

This week has been going pretty smoothly for me at work, which is just as well because I have a cold, leaving me with little extra energy to deal with things that don't go smoothly.

This weekend we're all going our separate ways. The three older kids will be at their dad's. Jen and Willow will be staying with a friend near Santa Cruz, and I'm going to the Associaton of Environmental Outdoor Educators (AEOE) conference up north. Should be interesting. I'm going to miss everyone here though.

Oh well, here's more fungus.

We took the kids to the children's museum this weekend to check out the new Wonder Cabinet exhibit. It was really cool, evoking images of the cabinet of curiosities concept that inspired it while at the same time being welcoming to the modern 2-year old. Willow and The Dickens especially loved it. We'll be back.

At work, I'm teaching sixth graders this week and so far it's going pretty well. We found a scorpion and three Garter snakes up in the chaparral today. The two younger snakes were swimming around in the large puddle that serves as the centerpiece of the open space there, and snapping at passing tadpoles. So the kids got to see a food chain in action.




This evening I got to work our new astronomy program. This is only the second week that it has been up and running, so we're still ironing out some kinks, mostly logistical stuff like how to make sure that all 150 kids get to look through the telescopes. My part in the proceedings was to tell a star myth to the assembled groups and then supervise them afterwards as they wrote their own myths. I lit a campfire to set the scene, and told the myth as the sky darkened and the deer grazed on the nearby field. By the time I finished, the stars were out. It worked out pretty well actually, since I was telling a story about how the stars were created.
It was getting the various groups organized and moving them around to different places that caused delays. We need to fine tune that a bit. Some of the kids were really into writing their own myths, but others weren't. Some just doodled. I haven't gotten to read any of the results yet, but will when I get the chance.

I got home about an hour late. Next time we'll be more organized.

I've been falling asleep early all week because the government took an hour away from us last weekend. Sure, they say they're only borrowing it until Autumn, but how do we know that the hour they give us then is the same one they took away?
This is totally messing with the night programs at work too. Have you ever tried to do an astronomy program during the day. "Okay class, there is only one star visible right now, and it's right over there... We call it The Sun. Notice as you look at it that there is some pain. Don't worry though, we will get all of you into programs to help mitigate the fact that you are now, unfortunately, blind."

Next week I get to help with the new astronomy program. Should be a barrel of laughs.

I really liked the kids this week, despite their loquaciousness. On the long hike yesterday, one of the boys, not content with mere talking, vomited several times. I'm sure the next people to take the same route will wonder about the intermittent puddles of puke. Maybe if Hansel and Gretel had used this tactic they would have found their way back.

Today, most of the kids were upset about having to leave. Lots of them were crying, including a few of the boys. I think more kids hugged me this week than in any of the past weeks. I'm glad our program touches people in this way, but it's sad that many of these kids are going back to less than ideal home lives. Some of them have obviously been abused. Many of them probably have other problems. Life can be rough sometimes

The night hike no longer starts during the night, thanks to daylight savings time. In some ways this freaks the nervous kids out even more than it would otherwise because the late light makes them confident at the beginning of the hike so they're unprepared for the deep dark darkness of the Redwood forest at night.

The campers turning into little, whimpering puddles tonight. Some of them, anyway. Such is life.

And now, fungus.

They've gone and changed night hike night to Wednesday in order to make way for the new astronomy program. This will give us some breathing room, since lately the routine has been to go on a night hike and then rush back to the school to look through telescopes. If you've ever tried "rushing" through Redwood forest at night with twenty plus elementary school students then you know why I say that I'm glad the astronomy program now has its own separate night.

Today a kid named Dodo spotted the first Giant Salamander larva of the season. It was only a couple of inches long and quickly squeezed out of sight amongst the rocks at the bottom of the creek.
I also re-caught an Alligator Lizard I'd initially seen last night while setting up for the campfire. I think it's gravid.




Strange being home early on a Tuesday.

Yet another week of outdoor science school begins. Fifth graders from two different schools converged on us this morning. The ground was still muddy from the rain that came through last night, but of course that never stops us. During class today we discovered all of the usual critters - Ensatinas, Scorpions, Tree frogs, Darkling Beetles, and Deer. The kids proved enthusiastic, and did the usual paparazzi routine with their cameras. It's still funny that no matter how many times you tell fifth graders about the focusing distance of disposable cameras, they still insist on taking pictures of things from two inches away. I'm sure their parents just love developing rolls and rolls of film upon which there are nothing but indistinct patches of light and dark.
The campfire tonight went well, with the usual amount of singing and silliness and almost falling in the flames. It makes one feel sort of like a rock star.

At home, I saw the three older kids for the first time since Friday (Nate and Lexy) and Saturday (The Dickens). It's nice that they're spending more time at their dad's, but it's good that they're back home now.

The rest we had while they were gone was definitely well-earned though.

I finished up week two of camp at the other site with no problems. It was a pretty easy week, actually. The kids were helpful and not prone to outbursts of any kind. We even took a side trip to the muddy landslide area that had bogged down one of the other groups. I quickly discovered that there was a less muddy way around it, but almost as quickly discovered that there was a Stinging Nettle bush growing in the middle of it. The kids were more interested in getting as muddy as possible anyway. Of course, I was the one who had to pull all of their shoes out of the mud after they became separated from feet.

This weekend, for once, was quite relaxing. The older kids spent it at their dad's house. Lexy and Nate went Friday evening and The Dickens went Saturday morning. Willow had a fever on Saturday and Jen took her to the clinic to check if she had Strep Throat, but it looks like she has Fifth disease instead, which isn't a big deal. While this was going on I went and did a birthday party at a house that qualified as a mansion. It had a long, tree-lined driveway and one of those cobbled parking circles crammed with expensive automobiles. To tell you the truth, the obscenely rich make me nervous. Their ways are alien to me. The kids were great though, even if their backyard was the size of most city parks, complete with play structure and fountain. The mom, on the other hand, acted like she'd been abusing prescription medications. She wrote out a check for me and then managed to lose it before handing it to me. She asked me several times if I'd gotten it already before writing me another one. To top it all off, no tip was forthcoming. Jen's theory about this is that the party was probably booked by the maid, who failed to communicate to her employer that tipping was expected. Oh well. The overly affluent are not like the rest of us.

On the way there and back I noticed that the air was full of butterflies. They flitted and darted across the sky like autumn leaves in gusty wind. Quite beautiful, really. Today, the butterflies have been replaced by rain.

Earlier, an old friend stopped by with his son. We spend a couple of hours relaxing and talking, which was nice. The last time I saw him was at a Blue Oyster Cult concert in 1999, and that was a relatively brief meeting. His son is now sixteen, which is hard to believe somehow. It's always interesting to see a childhood friend in the role of parent. Of course, this is just another reminder that we're all getting older. We are no longer kids ourselves, even if sometimes we still act like it. I can still see the kid there, but with a layer of responsibility and experience placed on top. That's what growth is about. Of course, I can think of some people who never seem to change at all, but that's another story.
Before leaving, he gave me 20 dollars because sometime in the mid eighties we'd made a bet that whoever cut his hair first owed the other 20 bucks.

That's why I have long hair.

One more night of just the three of us before the barbarian hordes descend again.

The city doesn't seem so dirty from a distance. We hiked up to the peak of one of the foothills and stared out across the Bay Area today. I'm not sure why they even bother dividing the whole mess up into different cities. There are no actual boundaries. No inbetween places. It's all kind of melted together like wax from a candle left burning too long. The hills are not safe either. The rich people flee from the mess below because they have the money to do so. They use this money to build mansions in the hills, ruining the view in much the same way dead insects smeared across a windshield obstruct one's view of the road. Or like grubby little handprints all over a tv screen. You get the idea. Kick the rich out of the hills. Wildflowers are nicer to look at.

I feel like I'm getting more done at work this week. I know the trails a bit better now, and it hasn't been raining as much. My field group is pretty good too. Most of them, anyway. Yesterday, we even did some water testing, discovering that the pH level in the creek is just a bit too far from neutral - 8.6. We managed to get a campfire roaring in the waterlogged fire pit as well, by building a log platform in the middle of it so the fire would be elevated.
Today we slopped around on muddy trails, even stopping to paint our faces with some particularly inviting mud. The stars were out for the night hike, although light pollution from nearby cities erased much of the eastern sky.

I'd love to be up in the hills during a total blackout. The night is never really dark otherwise.

I'm feeling a vague sense of inspiration right now. I want to get more things done. I want to improve myself. I want to clean the house. I want to have more money in the bank. I want to spend more quality time with my family. I want to get back to drawing things on a regular basis. The problem is that I'm always either too busy or too tired. Such is the way of things.

I've been slacking off on the drawing lately. Waiting for more inspiration to hit, I guess. That said, here's one I did at work some time back...

Jen took Willow to her cardiology appointment today and the doctor found nothing wrong with her heart. It seems that the blue tinge on her lips and fingers may be caused by her being cold. Contributing factors are her fair skin and low blood pressure (she takes after her mother in that regard, not me). We're going to keep a close eye on her anyway, of course, but it's good that there's no immediate danger of any sort.

Nate seems to be coming down with strep throat now. Lexy puked in the sink earlier. The kids rampaged through an entire box of 24 popsicles in about as many hours, leaving little sticky patches all over. Most of our supply of parmesan cheese ended up on the train table, not to be confused with the laundry soap sprinkled on the floor and in Willow's hair. Routine maintainance is never routine around here. There's always some new sort of mess. Willow cussed earlier too. My fault. I was reacting to the laundry soap incident.

Lexy has strep throat, and I've got the first snifflings of what I hope is only a cold. At any rate, I'm staying home with Lexy tomorrow so Jen can take Willow to her cardiology appointment. It's too bad that I'll miss the last day of camp this week, but my kids are more important to me. That's not to say that the ones I teach aren't important, because they most certainly are. I just have to prioritize, that's all...

Today our group hiked up to a pond overlooking the reservoir I used to hang out at as a teenager. The water level in the reservoir was as high as I've ever seen it, and the pond looked like it was filled to above capacity as well. The sun came and went behind clouds, keeping the temperature at an agreeable level. The trail, which I'd never been on before, was peppered with piles of scat, probably from coyotes and bobcats, and the hillsides occasionally revealed sprinklings of wildflowers.




You can tell when deer are nervous. It's all in the angle of the head.





With toads, it's a little harder to tell, unless you pick one up. A nervous toad will pee on you. This one was no exception.




All of this grass will be brown in another month or two. For now, it's nice to see the contrast between ground and sky played out with such vibrant colors.

Willow's lips and fingers have occasionally developed a purplish hue over the last few weeks. This has been worrying us. Willow herself doesn't show any other symptoms. She runs and laughs and bounces. She tells endless streams of "knock-knock" jokes without punchlines. In short, she acts quite healthy. None of the doctors who've seen her have any idea why this sporadic purplishness is happening. She's got an appointment with a cardiologist on friday who may help shed some light on this for us. Until then we'll worry.

Work goes on, of course. This week I'm working at a different site. There are no Redwoods, but more than enough Poison Oak bushes to make up for it. The trails meander through Oak woodlands and chaparral. A chocolate colored, rain swollen creek rushes blindly by. The rain itself has been falling off and on for days now, turning the trails into miniature creeks. I'm having a great time though. All of the trails are new to me, which makes every hike an adventure. The kids in my group are great, even when they have to slop through the mud and lean and duck as we wind our way up trails overgrown with Poison Oak. The camp routine is slightly different as well, which keeps me alert. The night hike tonight was bright with reflected light. At the end of it all the moon finally poked through the clouds, followed by a couple of stars. Maybe tomorrow the rain will hold off. I've been reluctant to give the kids any time to work on their journals because of all the rain and mud, so a respite would be nice. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Last week ended with the usual frenzied rush to accomplish many things. I now have new brakes on the car, which didn't set me back too much. I also have a new power steering belt. Apparently, the old one was about to disintegrate. I've been going to the same garage for awhile now, and trust them not to make this stuff up. They could have though, and I'd be none the wiser.

Saturday, Nate and Lexy both went to birthday parties. The one Lexy went to was a sleepover, and he made it through the night without calling home. I went to a birthday party as well, as an entertainer of course. The thirty dollar tip was nice. I've been depending on tip money to buy the occasional cd, so it is quite important that people tip me.

The evening brought about the welcome return of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum to their home base. Their end-of-tour show was at The Independent in San Francisco (or the club formerly known as the Justice League formerly known as the Kennel Club...). They were brilliant, as usual. This time around the festivities included a puppet show and a very important lecture about the Monkey Face Eel. Value for your money. I even spent some of my birthday tip on the new Charming Hostess cd. Unfortunately, the show didn't let out until well after 1 am. I was glad that they played as long as they did, but less than pleased about the amount of sleep I was going to get. While driving across the Bay Bridge to drop G off in Berkeley, we narrowly avoided an accident. A car in the lane to the right of us merged into the side of a car in the next lane over, causing both cars to bounce and screech across all lanes like pinballs on their way to meet the flippers. I slowed down enough so that one car shot across the lanes in front of us and the other one careened leftward behind us. Both cars struck the guardrail to the left. We crunched through bits of glass and plastic left in our lane, and continued. I checked to make sure other cars were stopping before continuing. My rationale for not stopping myself was that the cellphone was at home and I currently have no CPR training. In short, any assistance I could give would probably be next to useless. Not to mention that there is really no safe place to stop mid-span. I still had a two hour drive in front of me as well. I deposited G in Berkeley, and M in Felton before finally getting home at 4 am.

At 7 am I got up and went to work at the same place I work during the week. Instead of teaching, I helped supervise the community service people who come up to clean the site. I think that they're all people who got popped for DUI. I got payed time and a half for my end of things, while they all worked for free. That's what they get for drinking. One of the main tasks that needed seeing to was the splitting of an entire Oak tree into fireplace sized logs. The tree itself had been cut down after it died (possibly Sudden Oak Death). With the aid of a wood splitter (a gas powered hydraulic plate that forces logs against a steel wedge) we processed about three cords of wood, which I am told is around six hundred dollars worth. Now we have plenty of wood for campfires.

That night I fell asleep early.

Today I mostly watched kids while Jen shuttled around to various appointments. I'm only doing four days of science school this week, starting tomorrow. It's at the other site too, which means all of the trails will be new to me. It's supposed to rain too.

Tonight I almost plunged us into the dark ages by tripping over one of the cords attached to the computer. It made the damn thing freeze up, but after several tries at restarting it, we managed to revive it. It made me reflect on how much time I spend online. I used to be quite content without this. Oh, the insidious influence of modern conveniences! None of them are really necessary to our lives. Not microwaves. Not cellphones. Not computers. But here we are anyway, plugged in and loving it. But it bothers me. Maybe we need another dark age.

A co-worker pointed me in the direction of this moth, sitting silently on a wall and waiting for twilight so it could flit mindlessly around the nearest electrical light source.




The kids this week are fifth graders, which means they're talkative, neurotic, and don't like holding each others' hands during games that require it. One kid has hemophilia, so I keep worrying he's going to fall and hurt himself. Another kid fancies himself a professional lizard catcher. He tends to see things that don't exist, probably for the attention that it brings him. To his credit, he has caught a couple of different kinds of lizards and discovered a few other interesting things as well. He doesn't always get along well with the other kids though.

Yesterday's night hike was interesting too. There was something rustling in the bushes near where we sat down in the woods. Nearby Owls were engaging in a vigorous hooting contest. The kids were a bit nervous. This abated when we got to the telescopes set up on the lower field and looked at the moon and Saturn.

I'm not sure which kid first saw the baby Rattlesnake in the middle of the trail. Half of the group had already passed by when somebody shouted, "snake!". I ran back to look, fully expecting to find a baby Rattlesnake since it was almost exactly the same spot on the trail where I'd relocated one last November. I wasn't disappointed.




It's a good thing nobody picked it up.

At home, The Dickens is recovering from a couple of days of puking. She's still a bit listless, which is really odd for her. Hopefully nobody else will get it.

Don't you hate when you're trying to read and scorpions start running all over you? It's distracting.

Sunday evening again. Time has chewed up the weekend and spit the remains into the compost pile of the past. I still have clear memories of it being Friday afternoon and watching the pollen leave the trees in little puffs, knowing that it would all end in sneezing for somebody. Allergy season is indeed upon us. It's even affecting me this year. Mildly though.

Saturday I did a couple of parties. The first one was nice, being in a backyard full of attentive kids, and being at the home of people who remembered to tip for good service. The second one was out in the boonies, did not have parking in front, took place in a crowded garage, was attended by children who were unfazed by any attempts to get them to focus, and resulted in no tip. Oh well. I drowned my sorrows by spending my tip money on a triple cd of bands nobody has ever heard of paying tribute to a wide range of science fiction films.

That night, Jen took some needed time off and went to a party while I stayed home with the kids. We all stayed up too late. Certain members of this household refuse to go to sleep unless their mom is here. Lexy held out the longest, finally conking out sometime between 1 and 2 in the morning.

Today Willow, Jen, and I headed for the hills. We soon found out that the only way to get Willow past the muddy bits was to pick her up and run with her.

We went up to the reservoir today. A few of the students found the hike tiring, but a couple of the boys who seemed to have been straining at the leash all weak had a great time. In fact, pretty much everyone had a great time. The reptiles and amphibians were out and about enjoying the warm Spring weather too.

Here's an Alligator Lizard perched on top of my hat. Just today I realized that they're sort of sausage shaped. Poor things.




And now, feeelthy peectures of ampheeebians. There were long strings of toad eggs in the water as well, and over where the ground got shady and marshy, I must have frightened off about fifty young Bullfrogs. Splashing and rustling everywhere.




Finally, here's a shot of the largest Garter Snake we found today. It was sitting right in the middle of the trail that follows the shoreline of the reservoir. One of the girls almost stepped on it. Later, we almost stepped on another one. Fortunately no actual stepping occurred.




In all, we found four Garter Snakes (two of them babies), One Alligator Lizard, countless Fence Lizards, multitudes of mating Toads, one baby Toad, and more small Bullfrogs than one would think possible. Out in the reservoir, Cormorants croaked at us.

Another warm one today. The turtles were paddling around in the pond and the frogs were silently sitting, waiting for the night so they could sing. Three more kids were added to my group due to yet another staff member becoming ill. Always room for more, I say. We hiked up the creek and down some trails, stopping here and there to look at fungus and amphibians. We even found a small, upset Ringneck snake on one of the trails. I'm not sure if somebody accidently kicked it or if it was mad just because we were walking by, but it was in full defensive pose with its tail flipped upside down and corkscrewed to show off the bright orange/red of its underside. I picked it up and inspected it for damage, but it seemed okay. Just mad. I let one of the new girls release it along the side of the trail, where it quickly disappeared into the grass.

For the night hike, the frogs were indeed singing. Above us, finally, we could see stars. After several weeks of cloudy skies, this was a treat. The fact that the evening was moonless helped as well. Now if we could just get all of the people to turn off their lights. Maybe somebody should monkeywrench some power plants. It would make it much easier to stargaze.

Between hikes, I had to come home so I could dispose of the rat that the python killed but did not eat a couple of days ago. I hadn't noticed it was still in the cage, but it soon made its presence felt by stinking up the house. The damn thing was swollen up to almost the size of a football. It reminded me of this taxidermied rat up at the Youth Science Institute - the one that kids always wanted to throw around because it too resembled a football.

Lovely.

Today was the first hot day of the year. It probably didn't get much past the mid-70s, but it was enough to entice all of the Fence Lizards out onto their favorite basking spots. The amphibians grumpily stuck to the shade, but this didn't stop me from finding four different varieties - all of the usual suspects of course. I even found the one-eyed California Newt that I encounter once a month or so. He looks healthy. The tadpoles in the glorified puddle out in the chaparral might be in trouble though. All of this sun might dry things up before they ever get to become frogs.

The kids this week are big sixth graders. A couple of them are nearly as tall as I am. Six foot sixth graders. What next? They seem like a well behaved group so far. More mature than last week's fifth graders anyway.

This evening after work I took Lexy and Nate to see a program on Orcas at their school. It turned out to be a slide/video show run by a really animated guy with a headset microphone. He was obviously passionate about his subject matter, and managed to make it interesting and accessible for all ages. Some of his anecdotes were quite funny too. He mentioned spotting a pair of Orcas playing frisbee with a Stingray, and Orcas tendency to mess with the minds of whale watchers. One of the sadder notes of the evening was his explanation about how first born Orca babies often die due to the accumulation of toxins in the mother's milk. The nursing action of these babies cleans out the mother's system so that subsequent babies can survive.

Oh, and don't call them "Killer Whales." It's a misnomer. He demonstrated that whenever somebody says this, you should react with a sharp intake of breath and a scholarly finger tap to your chin, while informing them that they're quite uneducated. Sounds fun.

That said, their scientific name, Orcinus Orca, means something like "messenger from the realm of the dead." Hurrah!

The school cafeteria was really packed, and the kids had a great time, although Lexy did complain a bit about having to walk there and back.

I've never been one to succumb to Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka SAD). In fact, I love Winter, whether it be pelting rain or frost-crusted landscapes. This is at least partially due to the aesthetic pleasure I take from anything gloomy. That said, I do love the first days of springlike weather every year. There's something about finally going outside in a t-shirt that has a positive effect on my psyche.

Jen, Willow, and I spent the day languidly doing errands, performing household tasks, and enjoying the weather and each other's company. We went to the library, a record store (where I used some of yesterday's tip money to buy the new Six Organs of Admittance cd), and a pet store. It felt good. The cycle of the seasons, especially during in-between times like Spring and Autumn, reminds me that not everything is passing rudely by at 100 mph. Life should be lived slowly, with attention to detail. Most often it is not.

We all went to Hidden Villa today to wander around in the sunlight and look at baby pigs. This where we go when we feel the need for recharging. It's like walking uphill through the stream of time, back to a space where life unfolds at a crawl, rather than a reckless run. It does wonders for one's state of mind, especially when the pressure of modern life starts to crush sinew and bone.
The flowers are blooming everywhere. The baby pigs frolic in the mud while somehow managing to stay relatively clean. A large skink peeked out from behind loose bark on a tree stump. Other families wandered around, more tentative about stomping in puddles than ours.

Here's Willow reacting to small pigs.




And here's Hidden Villa's resident turtle, still in the pond where we relocated it a couple of summers ago. The pond and the turtle are both covered with Duckweed, which is a non-native, invasive species. It also tends to make ponds look like lawns. I remember leading a tour past this pond and being too late in preventing an enthusiastic kindergartener from jumping on the "lawn." He got quite wet.




And finally, here's Willow making sure that the water in every puddle she passes is displaced.




She was quite sad when it was time to leave, but Nate had to get to a party, and so did I. Of course, Nate was going as a guest and I was going as a performer. I got tipped $40 too, which helps with the budget somewhat.

Today was long hike day. I've had a fluctuating number of kids this week due to people switching groups and instructors being ill. One kid spent the first couple of days this week trying to convince everybody to send him home because he was homesick. He finally told one of the teachers that the only way he would stay was if he could be transferred to my group. I can't take any credit here - he just wanted to be with his friend, who just happened to be in my group. Today and yesterday we had to split up the groups of coworkers who were absent due to illness. That meant that everybody got extra kids. Then of course there's the little girl with arthritis, who has to expend twice as much energy as the other kids when she walks. She never complains and has a great attitude, but often gets piggyback rides from teachers or cabin leaders when she gets tired and sore. She has missed a couple of classes just so she could rest. Today her mom came and took her out to lunch, so she missed the long hike. It's just as well, because we hiked for hours and ascended about a thousand feet in elevation. I missed her though.
We ended up making pretty good time, and covered a lot of ground. The skies were cloudy but the rain held off. The homesick boy and his friend proved to have the baldest shoes I've ever seen. They spent most of the downhill portion of the hike slipping and giggling about it. It's a good thing they didn't end up in a ravine. Kids are funny.

After I got home, the rain started. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy as well. I had originally planned to go to some concerts this weekend, but one got cancelled and another sold out. Not that I can really afford it anyway. There's always plenty to do around here.

In the Autumn, male Tarantulas leave their burrows in search of mates. But in early March, they apparently leave their burrows in order to communicate with each other via walkie-talkie. What they discuss in unknown.

This week, like last week, started off with mostly blue skies. Once again, I'm remembering twenty plus names as a new week of camp gets underway. My field group contains the usual assortment of personality types - smart kids, quiet kids, excited kids, and everything else in between. There is one little girl who has arthritis in her hips and knees and has trouble walking. She doesn't complain though. It's interesting that the kids who have the biggest obstacles to overcome are almost always the most mature. Not too surprising though. True maturity is often gained at a price.

I worked the evening program tonight with a co-worker who is sick with the same bug that I had the week before last. I'm glad it's the same one because that means I won't catch it. That said, my throat feels a little scratchy today. This could be due to allergies though, because otherwise I feel fine.

Oh, I believe I forgot to mention Willow's birthday party. We had most of her nearby relatives over for a wonderful chocolate cake, blondies (like brownies, except blonde so they matched Willow's hair), and butterscotch cookie bars, all baked by Jen. Willow opened her presents with glee and then threw them at us. She seemed happiest about the rubber ducks, but has been playing with the other stuff too. Her loot included lots of nice clothes for her to wear as well.

I'm still reeling with wonder at the fact that she's two already. The next time I turn around she'll be a teenager. I want this stage to last longer. She's just too damn cute. She now says "you're welcome" when you thank her for something. How very polite.

A storm of uncertain duration is moving through the area at the moment. The forecast in the paper calls for rain for the next several days at least. It's sure to be a wet and muddy week at work.

At the moment I'm itching from the first case of Poison Oak I've had in 20 years or so. Hopefully I won't transfer it to Jen or the kids. I'm not even sure when I got it. Must have touched a plant without knowing it. Since they're deciduous, it's a little harder to spot them during the winter months.

I did one party this weekend, and managed to get rear ended on the way there. I was stopped at a light, as was the person behind me, when some dunderhead in an SUV (of course) failed to see that we were stopped and hit the person behind me with enough force to cause her car to hit mine. There was no damage to my car (well, the rearview mirror fell of, but it falls off if you look at it funny), but the other two vehicles were banged up a bit. We all exchanged information and then I rushed off to the party to find out that they already knew I'd be late because a party guest had passed the scene and witnessed me standing there in my official party labcoat. So no harm done (to me, anyway). I got a 25 dollar tip too.

Last night, M and I went up to Berkeley to see Enemy Combatant, the new Central Works play. This time the inspiration comes from John Walker Lindh and the atrocities at Abu Gharaib (sp?). Very nicely acted, with wonderful sound design by G. Playing at the Berkeley City Club through march 26 (thurs - sun).

Okay, time to go wrangle children.

It was grey and cool all day today. We went up to Lake Ranch reservoir to eat lunch and play some educational games. I took some pictures.




These young Bullfrogs were hiding under a log at the edge of the water. It's strange that a species originally introduced to California because people liked eating their legs is now so abundant. Let that be a warning.




Here's a Pacific Tree frog mistaking the sleeve of a sweatjacket for a burrow.




Beyond the reservoir is a shady, moist area populated by amphibians and slugs. Fungi were also present in glorious abundance. Not a good place to play games though, so we left to seek out firmer ground.

Willow turns two tomorrow! Hurrah!

The day passed uneventfully, with everything going according to plan. Being a four day camp week, I have to cram five days worth of instruction into a smaller amount of camp time, so I shortened some lessons and changed things around a bit. We still managed to visit with the little tarantula who lives down near the Nature Lab though. He obediently sat on my hand while the kids all whipped out their cameras. Inside the Nature Lab itself, I discovered that one of the boys was so scared of snakes that he wouldn't even look at the lab's resident Gopher Snake. I didn't force the issue. People don't easily give up their phobias.

I almost forgot about a funny little "kid blooper" that happened yesterday: One of the kids was defining a term, possibly "decomposer" or something like that, using the word "organism", except that he left out a syllable. Yep. That one. None of the other kids noticed, but a science teacher from one of the schools was along on the hike and she definitely got a chuckle out of it.

The night hike tonight was rain free, but very bright. The moon, even though it is near full, was nowhere to be seen due to the omnipresent cloud blanket, but reflected city light washed away much of the darkness. I always make sure to talk about the city lights, and about why people feel compelled to leave so many lights on all night. It ties right into one of the subjects we cover at the beginning of every night hike. Of course I'm talking about fear. People in the cities are afraid of burglers and other even more nefarious criminal types sneaking into darkened buildings, while kids up at camp are usually afraid of something they saw in a movie, and imagine this thing sneaking around in the darkened forest. Fear is an important survival tool, but it seems that we do indeed live in a fearful society. People are more afraid than they need to be. Maybe.

Or maybe they're not afraid enough. Or maybe they fear the wrong things.

Who knows?

I went back to work today. It was warmer and sunnier than it was supposed to be, which is okay. Kind of nice, actually. I love the rain, but I love the times in between rain as well. There's still a lot of fungus growth and amphibian activity inspired by recent rains. The ground has soaked up a lot of water this season. We're still not allowed to go down one trail due to it being in an active slide area, where a couple of decades ago a big chunk of mountainside came down, wiping out a section of trail and tons of trees. It wouldn't be good if something like that happened while we were hiking by.

One of the kids this week insists on being called Guano. Nothing I can really add to that.

In a few days, Willow turns two! There will be cake and presents and celebrating.

I'm pretty tired, probably the aftereffect of being ill. I'll sleep soon.

I've been hanging out in Italy for most of the week, with occasional side trips to England, France, and *gasp* Los Angeles. I've learned some interesting things about the art world, although more about people who sell and steal works of art than about people who create them. There have also been murders. Lots of them. Some of them quite nasty. In the end, things generally work out quite well though. "Well", in this case, meaning "satisfyingly."

Too bad I've only got one more book to read in this series (by Iain Pears, and called "art history mysteries", probably by the publishers, who I imagine feel the need to over-categorize things much more than authors do). Still, this has been the most amount of guilt-free reading time I've had since I was a teenager, I think. I've been too sick to do much else.

Today I feel pretty well, although there's still some sinus pressure, complete with headaches. Last night I managed to hack up some blood, which alarmed me a bit. It may be due to having a bit of fluid in my lungs from laying on my back for so long while post-nasal drip flowed freely down into the caverns of my body. It may be due to a throat raw from coughing. Who knows? The human body is a mysterious thing.

Finally rejoining the real world, I went out late this afternoon and performed at a birthday party for a nine year old girl. This time I was armed with a tesla coil and an ethanol burner so I could zap things and burn chemicals. A couple of times I managed to zap myself right through the glove I was wearing, producing a bit of a rush. Similar to adrenaline, really.

I had originally planned to bring along my last remaining scorpion so I could make it glow under a black light bulb powered by the tesla coil, but when I went and checked on the scorpion last night I discovered that the term "remaining" no longer applied. It had died. It is an ex-scorpion. Deceased. Kind of sad, but expected. Maybe I should try breeding them... hmmm...

Anyway, the party was a success even without any arachnids in attendance. Afterwards I got a bunch of Indian food (In general, Indian families are interested when they discover that not only do I love Indian food, but that I'm a vegetarian), some cake, and a $20 tip.

Back at home, Willow, little detective that she is, pointed to my water speckled boots and said, "rain, rain!" Indeed she is right! The rain has started up again. Not that it's been gone for long over the last week and a half. Lots of clouds and rainbows interspersed with downpours. There've been rumblings in the news about mudslides and power outages, but nothing has happened locally yet.

There's nothing like being sick to make one feel like not doing a whole lot. I went home from work about mid-day on Wednesday, and I've been mostly sleeping and reading in bed since then. I have this fever that waxes and wanes, and aches that mostly just wax, although those too are finally starting to wane. If this wasn't enough, I suspect that I'm now getting a sinus infection. Lovely. Is it the flu? Not sure, but it's less than fun. It looks like Jen is in the initial stages of getting this as well.

What to do? Well, I think I'll go lay in bed and read.

I'm sick but stubbornly going to work anyway, since my position doesn't come with any kind of sick pay. Today my voice slowly degenerated into a hoarse croak, which hopfully, with the proper application of warm tea, will heal quickly. If not, I'm set to play the Onceler in a live production of The Lorax tomorrow night, so I guess I can pass off my voice as a "cruffulous" croak.
Walking in the rain all day and a portion of the night hasn't helped matters, I'm sure... On the other hand, I've got a pretty good group of kids this week. They all behave, and there's a little boy with cerebal palsy who is really cool, doing everything the other kids do and barely complaining. He does get tired on the uphill hikes, so I may have to trade him over to one of the other groups on Thursday, since our group is going up, up, and up.

Okay, to bed, to bed...

I'm sick but stubbornly going to work anyway, since my position doesn't come with any kind of sick pay. Today my voice slowly degenerated into a hoarse croak, which hopfully, with the proper application of warm tea, will heal quickly. If not, I'm set to play the Onceler in a live production of The Lorax tomorrow night, so I guess I can pass off my voice as a "cruffulous" croak.
Walking in the rain all day and a portion of the night hasn't helped matters, I'm sure... On the other hand, I've got a pretty good group of kids this week. They all behave, and there's a little boy with cerebal palsy who is really cool, doing everything the other kids do and barely complaining. He does get tired on the uphill hikes, so I may have to trade him over to one of the other groups on Thursday, since our group is going up, up, and up.

Okay, to bed, to bed...

Not much time for loafing around here. I started Friday off by joining several of my coworkers at a school whose fifth grade class recently stayed up at science camp. We sang some of the camp songs (recognizable tunes with lyrics altered to reflect outdoor science themes) during a school assembly before hurriedly hopping into our vehicles to make it up to camp in time to instruct the kids currently staying there. In the afternoon, my second employer talked me into going to yet another school to teach an after school program to a classroom full of kindergarten through second graders who acted like they'd gotten into the caffiene and sugar supply while nobody was looking.
Yesterday I went to a run down high school on the east side to help with a science workshop in conjunction with an elementary school science fair. There was free pizza and soda, as well as a magician, which made it entertaining. The high school sure was a dump though. Another case of money ending up in the wrong pockets.
Later on, I drove 30 miles and performed at a birthday party for some 7 year old twins. The family was nice, the kids were attentive, and the Filipino noodles and mango ice cream cake were delicious.
The rest of the weekend was taken up with cleaning and financial juggling. Tax forms were mailed, bills were groaned over, groceries were purchased.

I took Nate for a walk around the block last night, which was nice. It's great to do one on one activities with the kids. I think a lot of the behavior issues around here stem from the simple fact that we can never really focus on one child without the other three trying to get in on the action.

The week ahead is supposed to be rainy. Bring it on.

More student journal entries, from opposite ends of the spectrum:

The stars gazed down on a shuffling line of students as they whispered in the night. Stories of pirates and night vision. They thought of stars, sparking sweets, and lonely candles. Holding shoulders in a massive caterpillar they weaved through the trees. The stoic redwoods gaze solemnly down on the asorted people milling through the duff.
All on a late, winter night.

and

Jason, and Daniel were kind of freaked out. I was joking around about the chainsaw masacar and I got in trouble.

I'd rather have students like the author of the first entry above, but I have a feeling that it's people like the second author who really need the experiences that our program offers. Both of these entries were reflections on the night hike we went on last night, which is not ever a time to joke about the chainsaw "masacar" because most of the kids are already extremely nervous about being in the woods at night without flashlights. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't specifically told people not to try to freak each other out.

This little spider web, along with many others, is anchored by blades of meadow grass. This particular meadow is in the San Andreas fault zone. Fourteen miles underneath these webs is the main fault. Networks of smaller faults crisscross the zone.

At the moment all is peaceful. The spiders go about their business.

Every week at camp, the kids all get to pick "nature names". In other words, they get to rename themselves for the week. Predictably, there are lots of large carnivores represented. I've never had a week go by without somebody named Cheetah, or Tiger, or Mountain Lion. The raptors are always there too: Hawk, Eagle, etc. There are also lots of Butterflies, Ladybugs, and Fireflies. Not to mention Deer and Raccoons.

So why did one kid today want to be called The Potato? Sometime after picking this name, he wanted to change it to Giant Potato.

I always love it when people come up with the oddball names. The free spirits are out there, and they're naming themselves after edible roots.

Today is a four day week at science camp, so I didn't work today. In fact, I spent a good part of yesterday and today trying to lounge around. I was partly successful, or at least as successful as one is likely to get with four small children hanging off of him. In the end, not much was accomplished. We treaded rather than forged ahead, but I will always remember the words of one of my college professors: "sometimes you just have to do nothing." There really is a sort of wisdom in that. My nothing included finishing Sunset & Sawdust by Joe Lansdale, and starting The Raphael Affair by Ian Pears. This reminds me of my childhood, when I would often sit around all weekend (or indeed, all summer) reading novels. I can't do that now of course, so the occasional lazy hour or five is welcomed.

Other than that, I performed at a couple of science birthday parties, ran few minor errands, mowed the lawn, took Willow for a walk, talked with Jen without getting interrupted two hundred and fifty six times (while the older kids were at their dad's), and did this and that. One of the errands involved buying pet food at the usual place, where I noted that they must have recently hired somebody who can't spell worth beans. His (or her) handiwork was on display on the glass sides of many of the terrariums. Call me a snob, but when I visit a store where the displays are rife with misspellings, it makes me want to shop elsewhere.

Nate's not feeling well at the moment. He puked on Sunday at his dad's, and was running a fever earlier. He seems to be getting better though. Hopefully nobody else will catch it.

I checked out my first cd (Kronos Quartet "Caravan") from the library today too. I'm still fretting over not being able to go out and buy them like I used to, but I'm dealing with it. M handed me a stack of cdrs last weekend too, so I do have new things to listen to.

I managed to take both sets of car keys to work with me today, something I didn't find out until I got a message over the walkie-talkie in the middle of a hike. I've got to check my pockets before going to work. A little before this message came through, one of the girls in my group got a bloody nose and decided that she wanted to return to camp. One of my cabin leaders took her back down the trail, and through a series of wrong turns and a bit of miscommunication between me and one of the other field instructors, they got a bit lost. In the end they managed to get themselves found, so no harm done. The rest of us made it up to the same Redwood grove I visited with my group last week, which I noticed this week is a thousand feet higher up than our starting point. I told the kids this, and I heard at least one of them boasting about it after we got back down to camp. Of course, we got back late too. This group hikes a little slower than last week's did. We were almost late for milk and cookies, a regular thursday event at camp.

Lots of scat on the trail today too. At least one kid stepped in some. Darn coyotes.

Another day of hiking up creeks, composting, and wandering around under the trees. Now I'm guiltily typing away while I should be getting the boys to bed, so I'd better make this short. Here's a few photos from this week.




When millipedes feel threatened, they exude a smelly, yellow fluid that stains skin, leaving a mark that looks like a bruise or burn. Of course, I got the kids to smell my fingers, since it tied in nicely with the animal adaptations lesson I was teaching. Soon after this, I found one of the smaller, yellow spotted millipedes and discovered that they glow when subjected to ultraviolet light. Pretty neat. Below is a picture I took today, a millipede crossing the ranger road. This one was nicer and didn't stain me when I picked it up.




Our night hike last night was less eventful this week. One girl was too scared to make it through the hike and had to be taken back to the school by one of the cabin leaders. Another girl cried the whole time because she was feeling homesick. The rest of the kids did okay, and we got to spend some time at the telescopes looking at Saturn and a nebula (the one in the Orion constellation). Actually, only a couple of kids stayed out late enough to look at the nebula because it was getting late. I like it when people are interested enough in the things we show them that they stay up past bedtime to see more.




I'll leave you with an endearing little quote from The Dickens. "My poop wants to come out of my butt so it can play with you!"

This week is supposed to be sunny. It's kind of funny that a couple of days ago it was hailing, at least up in the hills. Today I met yet another group of kids, fifth graders excited to be up in the hills for science camp. The one exception seems to be a kid in my field group who I'm told has "severe behavior problems". He claims to not want to be at camp, although I caught him having fun on several occasions. One of the teachers from his school pointed out to me that his behavior problems are actually much less severe than they used to be. Still, it will make the week a little extra challenging. That's a good thing though. The best way to gain experience is to keep having new experiences.

Since I did the night program tonight (Monday night is always campfire night) I haven't seen my family much today. I see them briefly when I get up in the morning, but when I get home they're all in bed (or they're supposed to be at any rate).

Over the weekend I did a couple more birthday parties. Campfires and birthdays. I like my jobs.

Our end of the week meeting featured a local geologist who took us around the grounds on a mini geology tour, pointing out a stone culvert slightly offset due to its location atop the San Andreas fault zone, shutter ridges, dried stream beds and all manner of other interesting bits and pieces. Along the way we interrupted a small newt eating its lunch (in this case a worm) and got hailed on. In a way it was strange, with the people who normally lead field classes relegated to the role of student. It was interesting to be in the position of learner on trails where I am normally the teacher. Although there has yet to be a week where I didn't learn something myself while teaching... but you know what I mean. At any rate, I learned enough new facts to make future field class walks down these trails even slower, since I now have all sorts of new things to stop and point out to people. That means I'll be back from class even later than I am now. Oh well.

Lots of information to process. In the meantime, I've been looking at this site with my new 3d glasses. You've got to love meetings where 3d glasses are handed out. I guess this would be a good site for all you cubicle dwellers out there. It's very easy to imagine being in the pictures, away from the boring job and the yelling boss. In fact, why not just quit and go hiking...

At home, feeling masochistic, we took all four kids out to dinner.




Of course, every week I take about five times that number of kids out to lunch in the woods.

I almost forgot that I wanted to share some student journal entries about the night hike. sic sic sic.

There was just 5 or 6 people that haden did the solar hike. One of the people that was there was me. Suddenly something happen 3 coyotes past running, we gat really scared. Then we started to called Crow, our field instructor. Then he came and we told him what happen.
When that happen I was scard. When of the scares thing I have ever past. But I was like glade that happen to me.

On the night hike it was very scary. When we were in a line 3 coyote's passed by really fast it also touched me. After Crow came for us we went back to were everybody was sitting. Crow talked to us about planets. We also ate moon rock's. We had to have partners to see our mouth becuase the rocks shines in our mouths.

Last night I was scard. After I am not. We saw 3 cowotes then we were scared. Then we were walking together. We came as one big one of all. We saw Rachoroon, netes. We hear frogs. We whent to bed. Put our PJ's one.

... I was behind S wen we heard the nosey. Suddenly 3 coyotes came runing out of noware. Earlyer we saw 3 raccons in the trash can. The worse part about the coyotes was that Crow was not with us. We were scriming for help. He came and took us with him. Now I am more strong. Next we saw 2 newts. Finaly we heart some tree frogs. Then we went to the cabings and prepare for bed.

On my night hike we were just waiting to go on to the place we were supposed to go then we heard something running really, really fast. Then we heard a low howl, then we saw 3 coyotes running and it touched somebodys leg.

Crow gave everyone freze dryed fire Flys. I didn't want one because I don't eat bugs

We spent a good six hours on the trail today. The skies threatened rain but didn't deliver. The presence of the clouds made temperatures a bit chillier than they were this time last week, making the kids shiver and gripe. We did at one point pass a couple coming down the trail with their cute little four month old baby, all wide-eyed and bundled up against the cold. I love it when I see parents exposing their babies to the world beyond the suburbs.

I finally managed to get to this Redwood grove that I'd been meaning to visit for a couple of months now. It's a mere five minute walk beyond my usual turn around place, but well worth a visit. We ran into one of the other groups there, just as they were leaving. The other field instructor managed to twist his ankle just after his group passed us, and had to walk all the way back down the mountain afterwards. I guess I'm not the only one to have bad luck on thursdays. I hope it heals quickly.

There seemed to be newts every ten steps or so, and Banana slugs every fifteen. The rain brings them out of their holes by the hundreds. There were a couple of close calls between campers' feet and crawling newts. This is where camouflage works against them. I'm not sure why they're camouflaged anyway. They're too poisonous to eat, unless you're a Garter snake.

At home, The Dickens peed in the heater vent. What next?

Today it rained, so the newts were out in force, peeking out from holes along the sides of trails, crawling along in the damp, and peering out from under glistening tree roots. We hiked up one of the creeks, along with one of the other groups. That means roughly 40 fifth graders, two teenaged cabin leaders, and two field staff scrambling over slippery rocks, sloshing through rushing water, slipping in the spongy duff, and having the time of their lives doing it. Injury and water saturated pants and shoes don't make people enjoy this any less. One kid kept getting me to take his picture so he'd have all sorts of photos to show his mom when he got home.

It's always a bit of a trade off whenever you take that many kids into a riparian corridor. there is always an impact. We contribute a bit to erosion just by walking along the creek. Sometimes kids drop things - I know because I always find items left by other groups. And who knows how many animals are disturbed or even stepped on by careless feet? This is the price we must pay when we take kids into the wilderness. The hope is that what we do today, even though it has a short term impact on some trails and creek beds, will inspire these kids to make good choices in the long term.

Embrace the wilderness. Keep it wild.

Currently listening to Popol Vuh "In the Gardens of Pharao/Aguirre" and being calmed and carried away beyond the fields we know.