Summer Camp?

Summer Camp?, originally uploaded by Corbie.

The last time it rained around here on July 18th, they weren't even keeping records yet, and they started keeping track of such things 150 years ago. Today it rained enough to shut down the camp's climbing wall for the afternoon. Too slippery. The moss was soaking up the much needed moisture, and beads of water shimmered on leaves and spider webs. The ground drank it up. The kids, for the most part, ignored it and did the usual summer camp things like swimming and eating ice cream. That said, when we went down to the pond today, I was the only one who actually went in all the way. One boy stepped in up to his thighs before thinking better of it, but that doesn't really count. One must become one with the pond. One must get duckweed in places that duckweed is not meant to go.

I caught a huge Bullfrog too. I think the cool weather slowed it down just enough to make this possible.

Oh, I'm also playing bingo all week this week - wildlife bingo. I made up little bingo grids with the names of local animals written on them. Kids have to see the animals in the wild to cross them off. Five in a row wins. So far, several kids in my group have gotten bingos. Kids are naturally enthusiastic about seeing wild animals, but this makes them even more eager to find them. It gives us one more thing to focus on during hikes too.

Now, the clouds have mostly disappeared. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer. It's too bad, really. I enjoyed the fog and rain.

inn.aff.(orchext.)

inn.aff.(orchext.), originally uploaded by Corbie.

Friday after work I made my way rather quickly up to Oakland to participate in the inn.aff.(orchext.) big band show at 21 Grand, for a which a dozen or so musicians/sound artists/whathaveyou from all over the bay area converged (and in some cases, met each other for the first time) and improvised a mass of textured sound. Most of the usual suspects were involved, including all founding members of the O.A.C. and all members of the first live incarnation of irr.app.(ext.) (actually, come to think of it, all members of the most recent live incarnation too), as well as the good folks behind Maleficia, NF Orchest, French Radio, Petit Mal, and many others.
Before the proceedings got underway, I learned the hard way that it's not a good idea to park my car on a dimly-lit sidestreet in Oakland on Friday the 13th. Before it even got fully dark, some crackhead decided to vaporize my front passenger side window and rummage through the meager offerings within my car. The offerings proved to be so meager that nothing was actually stolen. Stuff sure was strewn about though. I'm glad he (it's almost always a "he", isn't it?) didn't take any of my cds. This is one of the many times I've been glad that I don't have musical taste similar to that of crackheads.

Anyway, after some thought, I decided to use the broken glass during the performance. Contact mics are wonderful things because they make broken glass sound so interesting. Before that, though, there were four opening acts. I'll have to admit that I spent a good amount of time outside the club chatting with people and keeping an eye on my car so that nobody would take advantage of the missing window to do some furtive shopping, but I did see some of Tarantism, who were delightfully bizarre, and Rubber O Cement, who played with us (irr.app.(ext.) in Seattle a couple of years ago. After the Rubber O set, an older gentleman was heard to comment (and I paraphrase here), "I don't know much about music or art, but I do know a rampage through the audience when I see it." It is indeed a wonder nobody got knocked out by the bizarrely costumed character wielding an instrument that resembles an electronic two-by-four stumbled amongst the seated audience.
When we finally go on, things start out with a projected video of Nora, the piano playing cat. With this many people playing at once, and from my monitor-less vantage point from behind the P.A., I can't really comment on how it all sounded. People clapped at the end though. Special thanks go out to Jim Haynes and the guitarist whose name I've temporarily forgotten for giving me their share of the proceeds to help me buy a new car window.

On Saturday, I went and got a window. $140. Cheaper than I remembered. This marks the 4th time my car has been broken into over the last 20 years. That's about 1 every five years. Not too bad, I guess.

Took the girls to the Children's museum too, which is always free for me. The girls liked the new Clifford the Big Red Dog exhibit.

Today we got things done around the house. I finished applying for financial aid for the teaching credential program I'm planning on doing. Finished applying for the program too. I feel a sense of accomplishment because It's sometimes hard for me to take the first step.

Tomorrow marks the start of the fifth week of summer camp. Hard to believe it's halfway through July already.

R.I.P. Kelly Johnson. I saw Girlschool open for Iron Maiden and the Scorpions at the Oakland Auditorium way back in 1982 (that's a quarter century ago!). I always like to think that musicians continue to live on, like their music. Sadly, that's not always the case. I haven't listened to much Girlschool in recent years, but I've always respected them for being one of the few all-female heavy metal bands in a male dominated genre.

Slipping Over the Eyes

Slipping Over the Eyes, originally uploaded by Corbie.

I had clipped an article about Butano State Park out of the paper several months ago, and Saturday I finally managed to drive out to the coast to check it out, bringing Willow and Matt with me. It proved to be lush and full of banana slugs, and pleasantly cool. So cool, in fact, that I ended up dressing Willow in some of my clothes to keep her warm. She thought it was quite funny. We went on a two mile hike, of which Willow probably walked 3/4 of a mile. Pretty good for her. We spent a lot of time investigating fungi and things under logs, as well as the great number of plants.
Afterwards, we went to nearby Waddell beach and watched the para-surfers (or whatever the heck you call people who allow themselves to be dragged around by inflatable kite/parachute contraptions while surfing) splashing through the waves. Willow, of course, got wet. I joined her. The water from a nearby river mouth was actually quite warm. There is still a lot of sand in my car. I don't care though. One day I might have a car I care about getting dirty, but for now I'll enjoy not caring about the state of my car.

We also managed to watch two movies this weekend, as well as go out to eat twice, the first time with Matt, and the second time With Jeremy and Jennifer. Will wonders never cease?

I'm into week four of the summer camp season, and my group this week consists of ten and eleven year olds. I found the hat I lost last week (it was under a board, dropped while I was attempting to catch a rattlesnake) and temporarily lost my walkie-talkie. The latter I found by going back to camp and getting another one so I could call my lost radio while I retraced my steps. It turns out I had dropped it while catching a Ringneck snake. I tend to get a little too focused sometimes, I guess...

This is week #3 of the 2007 summer camp season, and later on in the week the temperature is supposed to be in the mid nineties. I can't say I'm looking forward to that. This time of year, I much prefer the cool mornings. None of the kids have to get up early, so it's relatively peaceful. The roads are devoid of any school-related traffic, so the drive to work is easier. Not to mention me not having to drop any kids off at various schools on the way there.

Our camp has a bus that picks up kids at a school near the downtown area. Parents are advised to circle the block so they don't have to make an illegal left turn into the school parking lot. One day last week, I drove our camp van down to the school to oversee the bus boarding process. My job was to make sure the kids were safe and that their parents were obeying the traffic rules. I put cones out in the road to block any left turns the "specially entitled" parents might attempt to make. Jutting out of the top of one of the cones was a sign that read something like, "for the safety of your children, no left turn." Of course, at least one parent attempted to make a left turn AROUND THE FUCKING CONES! I effectively blocked his way, forcing him to make an awkward correction in the middle of the road.

This kind of thing really pushes my buttons. In fact, any time a person acts like safety rules and common courtesy only apply to lesser beings, I want to make them eat a traffic cone. Backwards.

On a more relaxing note, the other night, when the full moon was about to rise, Jen decided that it would be a good idea to go out and watch it, since it was supposed to appear extra large (yeah, I know it's just an illusion, but the effect is beautiful nonetheless). After failing to see it from our vantage point at the end of the block, all six of us hopped in the van and drove down the street.

Still no moon.

We drove here and there, eventually ending up back near home. Finally we saw it, rising beyond the houses, trees, and hills. We followed it, ending up at a park with a grassy hill, where we hung out for awhile while Jen took pictures. The moon was beautiful, but better yet, the kids mostly behaved.

It's nice not having a big TV in the front room. It makes it much easier to convince the kids to leave the house and do crazy things like driving around looking for the moon. Lunacy, indeed.

Would You Trust These People?, originally uploaded by Corbie.

On Monday evening, a bunch of us got together at the Berkeley City Club for some spoken-word fun. Greg, who regularly haunts the club in his role as sound designer for Central Works, put the whole thing together. The Club itself is a very elegant place, designed by architect Julia Morgan, and feeling like one of those places one would expect to find old men sitting in overstuffed chairs in front of the fire, discussing past exploits as they chew on their pipes. In fact, the upstairs room we occupied was called the men's lounge. Nearby was a sign that for the men's room, and we all hoped nobody would end up standing expectantly in front of the toilets, waiting for them to read stories or spout poetry.
As it turned out, being a Monday night, only a handful of people showed up. I read an old OAC story which I had extended over the course of the last week. Greg improvised some sound underneath it. The whole thing culminated in Matthias and Greg throwing a dirty garbage bag over my head and hauling me out of the room (pre-planned, of course - not a reaction to my story). Matt read a couple of short pieces (one OAC story, and an essay he had submitted elsewhere) accompanied by a backing cd. Greg read an OAC story, accompanied by Dean on guitar and Jim on bicycle wheel. Dean read/performed a very touching story about a corpse. Matthias very effectively read a section from an old John Cheever novel, involving the unfortunate demise of a dog.
Afterwards, a bunch of us went out for coffee and discussed silly names of teachers we'd had growing up. There are plans to do this sort of thing more often, schedules allowing. The next time a bunch of us get together will be on July 13th in Oakland. Expect improvised weirdness. More on that as the date draws near. Of course, Matthias won't be participating because one of his bands, The Book of Knots, is having their debut performance on the opposite coast.

At home, we've had some good news on the income front. Jen is going from being a contractor to being an employee, with an increase in salary and benefits to come. I can already feel some of that financial stress dissipating.

The kids have taken to staying up way to late, cutting in to any adult time the grownups might have. whenever kids are involved, summer is always so different from the rest of the year. Since I both live and work with kids, that means my whole routine changes.

This week, I did my first week of summer camp at my primary job. We have the option of spending Thursday night camping out with the kids (their one overnight stay during the week) or working on Friday. I opted to spend the night and have Friday off. Camp, in some ways, is like outdoor school, in that each staff member gets a group of kids to be in charge of. The differences are that we don't have to teach them the science standards, their ages vary more, and we only have them in the mornings. In the afternoon, we get to do whatever we want (within reason, of course) and whoever wants to do that particular activity shows up at the appointed time.
In the mornings, this week, I had a group of 7 and 8 year olds (much like I did last week at YSI), and in the afternoon I led a bunch of "critter hunts", during which we looked for snakes. The only snake I caught was actually during the morning (which makes sense, because that's when they're more likely to be out basking), but we did find some Alligator lizards and scorpions in the afternoon. I had an average of 20 kids on each of the hunts. On Wednesday, I did some "pond saving," during which a bunch of us went into pond to scoop out duckweed and catch non-native Bullfrog tadpoles. Afterwards, we fed the tadpoles to my Water Monitor lizard. He ate about 15 of them while the kids watched with rapt attention. I think I'll do this every week, since it proved to be popular and it's a good way to feed my Monitor for free.

That's it for now. It's getting late and pizza must be ordered.

Board Removed to Show More Snake

Board Removed to Show More Snake, originally uploaded by Corbie.

My reptile camp came to a close in fine style today, with the discovery of the largest Rattlesnake I have yet seen on the trails of Sanborn park. One of the kids spotted it first. It was resting under and between some boards piled up in the chaparral. The boards themselves form part of a large pile of wooden detritus which also includes some old doors, pallets, and various signs and bits of wire mesh. Rather unsightly, but, like the nearby panels of corrugated metal, great cover for any number of reptiles. The corrugated metal tends to become too hot during the summer though, so the wood becomes one of my favorite places to look. This particular Rattlesnake was content to sit still while I moved a board to get better photos. The one kid in my group with a camera also started clicking away. I wouldn't let him get too close, but I did take his camera and get him some close-ups. He was thrilled. I made certain that he mentioned to his mom later that the close-ups were taken by me. It wouldn't do to have parents thinking that I let their 7 and 8 year olds get within a foot or two of potentially lethal wildlife.
The section of snake I could see was nearly as big around as my forearm. And when it finally slithered back under one of the boards, I think I counted at least 12 buttons on its rattle.

And here I was afraid that the reptile camp kids wouldn't get to see any snakes! If I remember right, last year we found a Rattlesnake during the bug camp, but nothing of note during the reptile camp. I'm glad that trend was broken.

I'm glad that I continue to be excited by this kind of thing.

Solstice Sunset, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Yesterday, Jen had this brilliant idea of just dropping everything, piling a bunch of towels and snacks into a bag, and going to the beach to watch the solstice sun set over the water.

We ended up at Natural Bridges just north of downtown Santa Cruz, barely out of sight of the pier and the boardwalk. Since Santa Cruz is slightly set back in a bay, we weren't sure if we would be able to see the sun actually sinking beyond the ocean. Of course, once we got to the beach we discovered that the sun was fixing to sink beyond some trees and houses above the far end of the beach. Curse the unevenness of the coast! It ended up being just fine though. The kids all ran and giggled as they splashed in the surf, drew things in the sand with sticks, and practiced their acrobat skills. Pelicans lined the remaining natural bridge and occasionally peeled off in groups like fighter squadrons. I'll bet that's how the fish view them, at any rate. There was a fair amount of other activity on the beach. A photographer was busy taking portraits. A couple was attempting to do yoga on a sandy slope. Pagans were burning sage... the list goes on. I took pictures of Jen and the kids and then wandered off to get some shots of crabs.
After awhile, we bundled back into the van and went to eat at Saturn cafe, where Alex was dismayed to learn there was no meat on the menu. That said, the kids were pretty happy to discover a cache of anti meat stickers mixed in amongst the papers on the free paper rack. Stickers, apparently, are cool, even if they espouse ideologies antithetical to one's own.
As for me, I ate too much dessert. Longest day, biggest dessert.

Okay, things have settled down now, despite the fact that the boys have not one, but two, friends spending the night tonight. I can still hear them talking and bumping against the walls in the next room, but it's nothing like the mayhem earlier today.

I must admit that I added to the mayhem a bit. When the girls decided they wanted to play musical chairs, I put on a Dead Kennedys record to accompany the game. Initially, the boys refused to join the game, holding out for some Black Sabbath. I finally caved in and pulled out a Black Sabbath record (yes, I said "record" - the turntable still gets some use around here). You can imagine that 5 kids charging around a circle of chairs listening to Black Sabbath might get a little out of hand.

You'd be right.

But now all is relatively calm. I think I'll go to bed now.

Encore

Encore, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Shit.

I finally sit down to post something after weeks of being busy with other things, and the girls get into a fight over Sophie's near life-sized stuffed lion, which ends with Willow sitting in my lap. Of course, she kicks the computer's "off" button and shuts the computer down, causing my post to un-write itself.

Anyway, this is a cicada, who unlike most cicadas who know when to shut up, is singing happily away while clinging to my finger. The kids in my reptile camp were fascinated by it, and didn't care that it wasn't actually a reptile. We'd just found a couple of snakes anyway - a baby Rattlesnake and a young Gopher snake, both with lumps in their bellies from recent meals. Some poor mouse or vole is probably missing a couple of offspring.

This is the only week I'm working for Youth Science Institute, then it's over to the summer camp at my outdoor school...

Oh, by the way, we got a small pool, and there's another sort of altercation brewing concerning the whereabouts of various bathing suits. Silly me thinking I could sit down and write something. Bye for now.

During the night hike this week we found some glow worms. They're kind of reddish, with little bio-luminescent dots underneath. From a distance they're mere pinpoints of light standing out against the barely seen trail. We found them right after I'd told my usual night hike story about freeze dried glow worms, during which I feed the kids Wint-o-green lifesavers, which spark between your teeth when bitten (due to a phenomena called triboluminescence). Seeing the real thing helped convince some of the skeptics.

Sophie turns six tomorrow. We're going to the usual birthday place - the one with the guy in the rat costume and the imposing banks of video games. I'm sure she'll have a great time. Lots of her friends are coming. She got her ears pierced too.

Oh, I don't think I mentioned that our TV died. It's been peaceful around here. The kids still have their little portable dvd players, and there's a crappy old TV in the girls' room for watching videos, but I think they've been spending more time doing other things. If Jen and I want to watch a movie, we do it on her laptop.

One more week of science camp to go before summer descends upon us.

I'm in the middle of a four-day camp week, which just seems too short. I've given up on trying to cram five days worth of instruction into four days of camp. The kids have already had their Star testing anyway, and I don't think those happen again until the 8th grade or so. We are finding lots of snakes, salamanders, and other creatures that start with "s", and I think the kids will remember that more than lessons on photosynthesis or energy flow. Today I found, in quick succession, a Rattlesnake, a Ringneck snake, and a Gopher snake. I managed to get covered in ticks while doing it, so every minute or so a kid would point to me and say, "there's another tick!" At least now they all know what ticks look like. I think I got them all off me but I still have the phantom crawling sensation one associates with small arachnids pushing their way through a forest of body hair. Too bad they don't hurt when they bite. Of course, if they did hurt when they bit, they wouldn't ever live to breed.

Today is Memorial Day. One would think that with all of the advances (admittedly more technological than social) that the human race has made we would have found a better way to settle our differences than killing each other. Sadly this is still not the case, and people continue to die. Our governments are quite adept at rolling out tired old justifications for the ongoing violence, but it really boils down to squabbling over the basic animal needs of food, water, shelter, and space. Everything is linked to these four little needs. People will continue to die for them, especially now as the global population continues to rise and resources are squandered and just plain used up. That said, we're all in this together and my heart goes out to anybody who has lost a loved one through the impersonal violence of war, no matter what cause or country they think they are fighting for. Here are the lyrics to a song by a now defunct band called Amebix that I think appropriate for the occasion:

Coming Home

I just buried a friend
He had come to an end
But I can't help feeling that it needn't have been
Caught in the flak
There was no turning back
So he gave up his life for some psychopath's dream

So we're leaving the front
Having taken the brunt
Now we're tired of the slaughter in some foreign land
So the leaders of war
They fight alone on the shore
Our mutiny over they are left on the sand

We stand as one
We are an army now of many thousand strong
They stand alone
To fight for ravaged land to gain their worthless throne

[Chorus]
The boys are coming home

[Voiceover}
I see within my mind
A vast and lonely plain
Great armies meet in no man's land
To clench their hands in friendship
For the first time
The dark tide is ebbing
A mass of tired humanity drifting toward the dawn

We are coming home

Willow Eclipse, Part Two

Willow Eclipse, Part Two, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Willow and I headed for the hills yesterday so Jen could enjoy the novelty of being home alone (and so Willow didn't have to be stuck at home all day). I think if I had just had my appendix out I would want a little time away from small people with dependence issues too.
At Hidden Villa, Willow depended on me to carry her for the entire duration of our hour plus hike along the creek, up through the hot, aromatic chaparral, and down through the sun-dappled forest. We rested in the shade every so often to watch the butterflies and Fence lizards. I had hoped to see some Coast Horned lizards, but once again no luck. Nonetheless, we had a great time. Willow had an enormous amount of fun playing peek-a-boo with the chickens.

Today, I'm at work supervising the hapless Weekend Work Program inmates - people who at some time in the near past made some bad decisions that ended with them being arrested. I'm getting paid overtime to supervise them as they clean dorms and bathrooms. They're actually paying to be here.

There are only two more weeks of outdoor school left before summer sets in. Where does the time go? Speaking of time, its time to get back to work...

Appendix removed. Jen still in hospital. Home soon we hope.

So, Jen has to spend the night in the hospital. She had a scan done and was told to go over to the ER for admittance. I guess they think her appendix needs to come out. Some variation of this seems to happen every time she goes to have something checked out - the visit becomes an overnight stay, which becomes a stay of days and days. The kids are taking it surprisingly well so far, and we have friends willing to watch them after school tomorrow until I get home from work. I have to work the evening astronomy program tomorrow, but I plan to bring the kids back to work with me for it. Maybe they can get in some telescope time. Hopefully they'll all behave. Hopefully Jen will be home soon.

Sunrise

Sunrise, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Jen is sick with some sort of stomach pain, and I took the afternoon off work so she could have it checked out. We're hoping it has nothing to do with her appendix.

As for me, I'm just tired. Greg and I went to the wedding of Dan and Nieves up in Petrolia this weekend. We left after work on Friday and got home around mid-day yesterday, sleeping very little in between. The wedding itself was beautiful, with beautiful people and stunning surroundings. Attendance was divided between the mountain folk of Petrolia and Salmon River, and the smoky venue-dwelling creative types of the San Francisco bay area, with a few people coming in from even farther afield. Greg and I got there after midnight, just missing a set by Faun Fables (who, coincidentally enough, played for us when Jen and I got married). We slept on the floor of a converted barn, which also served as the band stage and dancing area. It was probably the best sleep I've ever gotten while on bare, plank flooring. The next day held the ceremony itself, some wandering around down to the nearby Mattole river, lots of marvelous food, a multitude of conversations, a short hike, and a rousing, nearly 3 hour set by Rube Waddell. Afterwards, Greg and I slept in the car. My plan to have the cold wake me up in time for the drive home worked perfectly. At 5 AM I turned the key in the ignition and we set out for home, stopping briefly in the Humboldt County Redwoods to ogle the "Tall Tree" (359 feet) and the "Giant Tree" (of impressive, but momentarily forgotten circumference), as well as the "Flat Iron Tree" which, having been laying on its side for 12 years or so, was sort of flat, I guess. Photos can't do justice to these trees. I took pictures anyway, of course. The Redwood forests up in Northern California make the one around my work look pretty tiny. Driving through them at night on the way there was amazing. We even saw some critters which I thought were Ringtails or Martens. After doing a bit of online research, I'm still not sure what they were. They could even have been young Foxes. The only definite Fox we saw was on the way back. It was a Grey Fox (which, just to be confusing, have some red on them). I can now cross them off my list of animals I have yet to see in the wild. At the wedding itself, one of the children there found a cluster of Coast Garter snakes. This excited me almost as much as it excited the kids, and I took lots of pictures. They've got a lot more orange than the local Santa Cruz Aquatic Garter snakes do. I also found a small Gopher snake dying on the road, making it the second dying Gopher snake I've come across in the last week (the first being at work, discovered by a co-worker in the process of expiring after obviously being run over by car). This Gopher snake was little more than 6 inches long, and seemed to have no life in the front half of its body. It did wind its tail around my finger when I picked it up though. Strange and sad.
On the wedding night the crescent moon smiled down on Venus, the Goddess of Love. The photo accompanying this post was taking the morning after as we drove home.
I wish that Jen and the kids could have come. Our lives these days seem to be all about taking turns doing things rather than doing them together.

On the subject of kids, I recently got a mother Emperor scorpion with a back full of babies. This resulted from me asking about them at the pet store when I went to get food for the other animals, and being told I could have them for $20 because the guy who runs the store didn't want the extra work of caring for them. It should be interesting to watch them grow up.

I should really post more often here. Things happen and, being nearly 40, I forget them. The kids at science camp are done with their testing for the year, and they're obviously ready for summer. We've been finding lots of snakes and such, and generally having a good time. Still waiting on word of when they're hiring for the next position with benefits. Soon, I hope.

More later.

I've been fooling around with the "map" option on my Flickr page - and it's really interesting. It allows you to "geo-tag" your photos so that if you click on the "map" link next to the photo you can see exactly where the photo was taken. Try it. I can zoom right in and actually see a satellite image of my work and some of the trails I hike on.

A Snake in the Hand...

A Snake in the Hand..., originally uploaded by Corbie.

I managed to get the kids to school on time (or almost on time, at least) this morning. The girls have been a chore to wake up lately, and Willow never wants to eat breakfast at breakfast time. I think her internal food clock needs batteries or something. She seems to get hungry a couple of hours after meal time. I ended up having to throw away most of the string cheese I gave her to eat on the way to school. It's funny how we're all wired differently when it comes to things like eating and sleeping.

Later, after I picked up Willow from school, I took her up to my work to get my paycheck. We got there at noon, which on a Thursday is very quiet because all of the kids are in the middle of their so-called "all day hike," during which they eat lunch on the trail somewhere. The kitchen staff cooks up a "teacher's lunch" for the classroom teachers, and since it is geared towards the adult palate, it's always much better than the kid food. We joined the teachers. Willow had some cake. Then we went to the garden where Willow got to hold a small Ringneck snake, followed by a little hang-out time at the pool with some of the teachers. It was actually kind of nice just to relax for a bit. I love my job, but the occasional break is good too.

Now we're all home. Time to go do some laundry or something.

In Flight?

In Flight?, originally uploaded by Corbie.

At work, we have a stuffed Barn Owl hanging from a wire on the ceiling of our nature lab. The owl, long dead, has recently begun to support a population of insects. It fell to me to do something about it, so I took a closer look at the problem today and found that it was crawling with little beetles. So, with my class watching, I took it down and we marched it up to the freezer. Once there, we bagged it and stuffed it inside. Unless the beetles have little parkas this should solve the problem.
One of my Flickr contacts thought the beetles looked like Carpet beetles. After doing a little research, I agree with her diagnosis. It's funny that the carpet beneath the owl shows no sign of infestation. I'll bet they're in there somewhere though.

I found a big Gopher snake in the chaparral area as well. The last one I came across was in the meadow last summer, so this was an unexpected treat. One of the other instructors spotted one in the meadow near camp too. Oh, and I found another baby Rattlesnake near our hillside amphitheater, mere minutes before the area was to be inundated with kids.

As for the kids this week at camp, they're bright and full of good questions. I like that.

Jen is on her way to Texas for a wedding right now, and will be there until Sunday. I'm taking the rest of the week off work to juggle the kids. Right now the younger ones need milk and stuff. Bye for now.

Jumping Spider

Jumping Spider, originally uploaded by Corbie.

One of my co-workers found this little critter in a box (or at least used a box to transport it over for the rest of us to see it), so I figured I'd take some pictures of it. Of course, being a Jumping spider it jumped off my hand and right through the hole in the knee of my pants. It took me about ten minutes to get it back out of my pants. In fact, I finally had to take my pants off and gently shake them to make the spider reappear.

Later, a Calisoga spider left my hand and disappeared somewhere. I don't think it's in my pants. Calisoga spiders don't mess about. They bite.

Anyway, I got a good photo out of the experience. Now that I've figured out how to crop things I can increase the macro effect too.

Jen recently picked up some new wind chimes (for "W" sharing day at sophie's class), which now grace the space under the eaves outside the north wall of our house. Right now they're chiming and it's a peaceful sound, serving as a counterpoint to the occasional howl of the wind. It's a sunny day though. Willow and I went to the park for awhile. The guy running the ticket window for the carousel was a past volunteer at my work, so he let us have a couple of tickets for free. At the end of the ride, Willow hugged her horse goodbye. Now, Jen is out seeing Spiderman 3 with Nate. The girls are playing in the other room. Alex is at a friend's house. Perhaps I should be doing something more productive.

Speaking of productive, they're going to have to add on to the war memorial wall in Washington D.C. I read a report that they've run out of space to add more names - names of people who would still be living if not for... war. It has been said that the insane don't know they're insane. But surely the sane should know not to vote for them. And surely the sane should have figured out a few hundred better ways to settle differences between opposing factions. Or maybe there just isn't enough sanity left...

Staring Contest

Staring Contest, originally uploaded by Corbie.

As a child, I used to spend an inordinate amount of time catching toads. In those days, most neighborhood parks had large rocks as part of their landscaping scheme, and there was usually just enough space underneath to comfortably fit a toad or two. I was too small to overturn the rocks, so I would flush the toads out by dumping water into the holes. I was very patient, and my patience was usually rewarded with the appearance of an irked amphibian or two. I would then take them home and keep them, which unfortunately often resulted in their premature demise. I had the enthusiasm but not always the knowledge needed to provide for them.

These days, despite spending most of my working hours on hiking trails, I don't see as many toads. I'm pretty sure that local populations have declined greatly, probably in part due to kids like me who remove them from their habitats. That said, I'm sure habitat destruction and pollution also must take a share of the blame. It really is too bad. I admire the zen-like expression of the toad. They're very placid little creatures, and their jewel-like eyes seem to contain hidden depths. In the case of this photo, it is possible to see the reflections of my camera lens and a couple of kids. We found this little guy on a hike along the shores of Lake Ranch reservoir. He was inside a hole, with just the tip of his nose showing. Right after this discovery, we also found a mother Killdeer who loudly defended her eggs from us. The silly bird didn't even have a nest, and the little speckled eggs lay on the ground underneath her, almost invisible.

I often reflect on how part of my job includes doing the same kind of thing I loved doing as a kid - finding animals. The main difference, of course, is that now I just take pictures and leave the animals where I found them. I find comfort in knowing that these animals are out there, and I find comfort in their simplicity.

Human beings make things too complicated for their own good sometimes. Why is that? When can we stop?

Greg has linked to this on the OAC site, but I'll link to it here as well. This is the Neighborhood Public Radio performance we did some months back, featuring backing music improvised by Greg, Matt, and I. Greg then tweaked it a bit so it would unobtrusively rumble along under our story reading antics. Fun times. Apparently we're going to do another live reading in Berkeley next month. More details possibly forthcoming.

Hiding Behind Flowers

Hiding Behind Flowers, originally uploaded by Corbie.

I've just been informed that this is a Variable Checkerspot. Good enough for me. But does it really think it can hide behind those flowers?

On Monday night, my inaugural voyage as our camp's night supervisor hit some rough seas. None of it was my fault, fortunately. First of all, our volunteer cabin leader coverage was lacking. A couple of cabins, for various reasons, didn't have cabin leaders in them at bedtime. One was at some sort of play practice somewhere, and one was just not where she was supposed to be. During this time, the hub (camp office) was packed to the brim with kids, some of whom were homesick, and some who had headaches of varying severity. The most severe cases of homesickness and headacheness ended up going home. One girl with a sinus headache fell asleep on the lower bunk of the hub's bunk bed. After an hour and a half of this, things quieted down a bit... until around 1:30 AM when a boy covered in vomit staggered in. Some general cleaning followed. After he had cleaned up and changed, he fell asleep on the top bunk, above the girl with the sinus headache. I finally got to sleep around 2:30, and woke up to my alarm at 6 AM. At that point, you could see a number of bats flitting around outside the hub window, coming home to their hiding spots in the crevices and crannies in the roof of the building. Getting to watch the bats and helping kids fight feelings of homesickness were the high-points of the night.

After I left, I picked up Willow, dropped her off at school, and went back to work at our other site. It was kind of funny greeting kids on their first day of camp two days in a row - like having two Mondays in a week. I got to stick with this second batch of kids though.
Our second site also had a dearth of volunteers. My cabin leader, instead of being the usual 14-17 year old high school kid, was a classroom teacher. She was definitely more effective than a high school kid would have been.

Now it's the weekend all of a sudden. I was going to write more, but Willow needs me. I'll end by saying that it's too damn hot.

I'm doing the overnight shift at work this evening. Of course, I did a day shift too, showing up before nine this morning to greet kids and take a field class hiking. I was covering for a co-worker who is in dire need of a root canal. Hope she's on the mend.
Tomorrow morning I go over to our other site to start the 4 day program there. It's sort of like having two Mondays in one week. Hmm. I'm already tired.

Flower in the Wind, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Happy Earth Day! Remember, it is far better to have a symbiotic relationship with our gracious host than it is to have a parasitic one. Right now I'm thinking of the Gaia hypothesis (now more properly known as the Gaia Theory) and how it really rings true for me. If you look at how the Earth regulates itself, whether it's through plate tectonics or atmospheric patterns, it is easy to think of it as a living thing. I remember reading somewhere that the salt content of the oceans is the same as the salt content of our own bodies. Sure, none of this is proof that the Earth is a living organism, but we've all gotta have faith in something, don't we?

Think of how we treat parasites. I don't want to be plucked off and smashed under a fingernail. Do you?

Small Circle of People

Small Circle of People, originally uploaded by Corbie.

As I was leading my group of kids up to the pond (actually now a meadow, thanks to the pathetic amount of rain we've gotten this year), we looked to the right and saw another hiking group on circled up far below. You can barely see them in the photo here. This is the cool thing about our second site. It's much more open, with chaparral being the dominant community, so the views are much more striking.

Later on the same hike I caught sight of a Western Racer, a smallish olive green snake with a yellow ventral side. It caught sight of me at about the same time and shot off into the Coyote Brush and Poison Oak where I couldn't follow. I haven't seen a Western Racer around here since I was a teenager, so it was a treat to see one. Too bad I didn't have a chance in hell of catching it or even photographing it. Quick little bastards. I still remember catching one more than a couple of decades ago and having it bite me multiple times before I could get it into a bag.

As for the kids this week, I had a great time with a large group. On Wednesday evening, there were 31 people on the night hike I led - 24 students, 2 interpreters for my 5 deaf students, 3 cabin leaders, one teacher, and one head of a San Diego outdoor school (a member of the California Outdoor School Association - COSA for short) who was observing our camp so that we could get re-certified (something that happens every five years). Oh, and me. 32.

We got re-certified, by the way. We're all quite excellent at what we do, of course. Basically, what happens is heads of COSA-member schools take turns observing other COSA-member schools to make sure they're doing their jobs well. It's a great way to self-regulate.

I had a great time interacting with the deaf students and their interpreters . We even played a round of "telephone" in sign language. It was quite amusing. I hope I get more chances to work with people with special needs. It definitely keeps me thinking and second guessing myself. I changed my plans a few times during the week so that everybody could be included in the games and activities.

At home, Jen is still sick, although right now she and Willow are out babysitting baby O (actually he's toddler O now). I did a reptile party earlier today for a 7 year old boy who knew as much about reptiles as I did about dinosaurs when I was his age. In other words, everything. There were lots of younger kids there too. I brought four snakes, a couple of Bullfrogs, the Flat Rock scorpion, two tarantulas, and some Hissing cockroaches. At one point, I looked back at the cages and found one of the Bullfrogs sitting on top of it. He'd pushed up the little plastic window in the middle of the lid and hopped right out. It was amusing trying to catch him. Bullfrogs are quite slippery. The kids loved it, of course. Good money too. It started raining pretty hard while I was there, and then most of the way home as well. It seems to have calmed down now.

I'm continuing to try to fight off this sore throat/cold thing that has so afflicted Jen for the past week and a half or so. Hopefully we'll all be better soon.

Caterpillar On A Fence

Caterpillar On A Fence, originally uploaded by Corbie.

I've got an interesting group of kids this week. Five of the campers in my group are deaf, as are two of my cabin leaders. There are, of course, a couple of sign language interpreters hiking with us. Without them I'd be reduced to pantomime. I think this is the first time I've worked with deaf kids, and it makes me feel energized, perhaps because I find I'm having to rethink my lessons so as to include everybody. I'm already picking up some words in sign language, as are some of the other students.

The only picture I took during class today is the one accompanying this post. I'm not sure what kind of butterfly or moth this will turn into. In a way, caterpillars are sort of like kids. They eat a lot, and they have the potential to turn into butterflies that can spread beauty wherever they flutter. Some of them, however, may turn into moths that eat holes in all of your best sweaters. It's sometimes hard to tell what kind of adult a kid will turn into. Of course, with kids it's not predestined. Through hard work and vigilance we can usher them away from the good sweaters and towards something more productive and aesthetically pleasing.

That said, I find moths aesthetically pleasing too.

I just went out and dumped some old banana peels and other bits of plant detritus into our backyard worm bin. At the moment, I can't remember how long we've had it. I started it off with moist newspaper and worms, and ever since then I just dump in whatever fruit and vegetable waste we generate. It's not a lot, really, considering that the first stop for any half-eaten fruits or vegetables is the iguana cage. Second stop is usually in with the hissing cockroaches. The worms play third fiddle. They don't seem to mind though. They just keep crawling through the moist darkness, making soil. We have yet to use any of their soil, but we have plans. Plans aside, it's kind of fun to peek under the plastic lid of the bin and see what rots fastest. At some point, some egg shells were dumped in there (did I do that?) and now they look kind of lonely sitting there in the dirt. Potatoes and onions send up pallid little sprouts, as do carrots. It's interesting to see how long plants can grow in the darkness. Occasionally mushrooms appear. Less interesting than that are the clouds of minuscule flying insects that invade my airspace whenever I open the lid.

Definitely more fun than watching TV.

I wish we had a yard that would support life though. We should all grow food. It doesn't get more local than that. With oil production peaking and prices rising higher and higher, buying (and producing) food locally is going to be something that we'll be hearing about with increasing regularity. Think about all the fuel we use shipping food from out of state, not to mention internationally. Think about getting some worms to work for you. Not that I have any illusions about us actually producing food in our backyard.

The squirrels would get to it first.

Word has it that we're heading for a drought around here. Right now it's gently raining, but I can count the number of rain days this season on the fingers of one hand. Since I work outdoors, the difference between this year and last year are very apparent. One of the interesting things is that wild animals, especially coyotes, have been more visible. They've had to come down out of the hills and spend more time closer to the creeks and reservoirs. This means our field classes come across them more often.

This week we didn't see any coyotes, but we did find our first California Kingsnake of the season. It was a baby, spotted by one of the girls in my field class. We also came across a couple of baby Western Rattlesnakes, the first one in the garden (now residing in a nearby meadow) and the second one alongside the trail leading through the chaparral (so well camouflaged as to be virtually invisible). The Ringneck snake count for the week was four, including the biggest one I've ever come across, which isn't saying much since Ringneck snakes never get much bigger around than a pencil. I also had a kid, after repeatedly being reminded not to step on boards, perforate his foot by stepping on a nail jutting out from a board. His sock was soaked in blood, but after a little medical care it didn't slow him down on subsequent hikes. On the all day hike, we found a roadkilled deer nestled in a dry wash beside the road leading up to the reservoir. I'm sure it will stink over the coming weeks. Poor thing. Less water in the hills means more animals on the roads. We also found a couple of dead moles, who are among the only animals to be buried while alive and on the surface when dead. They've gotten it backwards.

Tomorrow I'm doing some extra work around camp. It will probably involve mowing the lower field. Monday I'm off, and Tuesday I'm at our second site with students from our kids' school. They're a year ahead of Alex, but I'm sure I'll recognize some of them.

Check out the Amoeba records site for more photos of the Nurse With Wound instore. They're better than mine. I'm even in a couple of them.

Ghostly Figure, originally uploaded by Corbie.

I got back from L.A. late Friday. It was a great, albeit quick, trip. Vic and Jim Kaiser picked me up on Thursday morning for the journey down. We had cds and snacks and a car without a working speedometer. Vic drove most of the way, with Jim taking over right before the Grapevine. It was nice to be a passenger for once. The Central Valley has always interested me, with its vast expanse of nothingness and hazy distant hills. Here and there human beings have gone to great lengths to farm. I remember reading (or hearing) somewhere that portions of the valley have subsided over time as much as 75 feet due to aquifer depletion. That's what happens when one attempts to farm in a desert. The only real unpleasant part of the journey, as always, is the cloying odor of cow shit that assaults the nostrils of unwary travelers as the 5 makes a beeline through Coalinga.
We managed to avoid any signs of traffic congestion until we were only a few miles from our exit. Nurse With Wound were slated to play instore at Amoeba Records on Sunset Boulevard at around 7 PM, and we pulled into the store's underground parking lot at sometime around 4. This was okay by us, since we're all confirmed music junkies and Amoeba is the biggest record store on the west coast (biggest store worth a damn, anyway). Jim works at the Amoeba in Berkeley, so it was almost like going to work for him. We split up inside and I pawed through cds and vinyl for awhile before Vic informed me that Matt and the other Jim (Haynes) were upstairs. Vic had brought down a couple of boxes of printed material that he'd been asked to have printed by Ken (owner of the fledgling label Raash Records, whose inaugural release was to be the Nurse With Wound disc that this whole shindig was the release party for). By the time I got upstairs, Matt and Jim, with the help of a couple of other people I hadn't met yet, were already hard at work cutting them up, using box-cutters and a couple of tiny paper cutters. The room they were in also contained a great quantity of snack food and drink, there for the taking. Trips are all about snack food, so I had some. As there weren't any other cutting tools to use, I went back downstairs to wander around the huge expanse of cd, dvd, and vinyl racks that make up Amoeba. I picked up a few cds (mostly used, due to my budget constraints) and noted with irritation that the unfavorable exchange rate between British pounds the the U.S. dollar has caused a steep jump in U.K. import prices.
The store gradually filled up with people there for the instore. Steve arrived, as did John Contreras, who would be contributing cello to the proceedings. John was the only local member of the evening's Nurse With Wound lineup. Matt and Jim are both from the bay area. Steve lives in Ireland. Hazel resides in Texas.
Big Amoeba employees enforced fire lanes and roped off aisles. More people crowded in. The show started. Steve had a pair of turntables and a guitar that he bowed during the latter part of the set. Matt had his bass and usual bag of bits and pieces. Jim had rusty things and his own bag of tricks. John improvised with his cello. Hazel read a T.S. Eliot poem and then something of her own. My plan had been to stay up front and get a few pictures, then move back so I'd actually be on the proper side of the P.A. system, but I discovered I was hemmed in by the crowd so I stayed up front the entire time. They played for about half an hour, during which the piece rose from a soft, surreal soundscape to an ominous, unintentional drone caused by Hazel's mic feeding back. Steve later said that this was his favorite part of the show. It was strange to see this all unfold in a well-lit record store instead of a more traditional venue. I'd seen everybody except Hazel perform before, and been on stage with both Matt and Steve, but this was the debut of this particular line-up, so in some ways it made it all brand new. There is always a trade off between the mystery of not knowing how the sounds are created and the up-close observation and inside knowledge of what is going on. All you really have to do though is close your eyes and avoid rational thought . The mystery floods back in. Thirty minutes of beauty.
After the set had concluded, I went back upstairs to the little back room with the food. There was some stress surrounding the fact that the cd that this was a release party for had not actually arrived yet. It was still at the airport, but Ken was dealing with it. Ken had elected to be mysterious about what cd was actually being released, but most people had been able to figure out that it was Insect and Individual Silenced, one of the only items in the extensive Nurse back catalogue yet to see official re-release. Steve had disliked this release so much that at some point he'd destroyed the masters, so this release was made possible through the diligent efforts of people like Kevin Spencer (of Robot records) who spent time digitally cleaning up the recording using a pristine vinyl version of the release (if I'm remembering that right) and Matt, who did his usual brilliant job of tweaking/manipulating the artwork and doing the layout.
Steve stayed downstairs to talk and autograph things. I found myself talking with a couple upstairs. He was a writer. She was a singer. They'd just moved down to L.A. from the Bay Area. I found out that they knew where Sanborn park was (where I work, essentially) and we talked awhile before I asked the woman about her music. It turned out she was Jolie Holland, a singer who Jen and I both listen to quite regularly. I did one of those comical double takes, or at least I imagine I did. We talked a bit more before she asked if she could borrow a guitar. Jim Haynes went downstairs to ask Matt if it was okay, and soon she was singing and playing. It was kind of like getting a bonus concert. During this time the much anticipated cd finally arrived from the airport, and it turned out to be beautiful. It comes in a plastic slipcase inside which is a fold-out digipack. Quite stunning, actually. Steve, ever the generous type, gave me a couple of copies (one for Greg). Jolie continued to sing in the background. Who could ask for anything more?
We finally started clearing out. Vic, Jim, and I went searching for a cheap hotel to stay in for the night. Most of the rest of the crew went down the street to a bar called the Cat and the Fiddle.
After a bit of searching, we found an economy hotel (which actually had the word economy somewhere in the name) and checked in. Then we went to join everybody at the Cat and the Fiddle, unfortunately arriving too late to get any food. The waitress took pity on us and comped us a couple of rolls with butter. We all stayed until around 1 am or so, then all went our separate ways to get some sleep.
In the morning, I discovered a tick on my leg. The little critter had probably been hanging out in my pants or shoes since Wednesday, since it's more reasonable to expect to find them at my work than it is to find them in the sheets at a hotel on the Sunset strip. Damned hard to get them off without tweezers.
After I removed the tick and we'd all gotten cleaned up, we drove down to meet up with Jim Haynes and Matt. We ended up at a restaurant called Roscoe's, which served chicken and waffles in various combinations. Afterwards, we walked back to Amoeba so Jim could collect some cds he'd put on consignment the day before (he'd managed to sell a few, but not all). He gave me one too. Thanks Jim! I listened to it yesterday and it's quite nice.
Next stop was the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a favorite of Jim's (Haynes, that is). Due to missing a turn on the way there we got treated to the L.A. experience of witnessing paparazzi in action. Not sure who they were photographing, but a mob of them had their cameras directed into a store of some sort (possibly a clothing store).
The Museum itself was quite interesting. It is a maze of creatively lit (or unlit) rooms featuring displays of such things as trailer living and cat's cradles. There was a display on strange folk remedies, and one on microgaphy, as well as lots of other interesting little nooks and crannies. Some of the displays were in virtual darkness, and I had to strain to make out what they were. It added to the mysteriousness of it all. Upstairs, there was even a little tearoom where a woman with dog (some sort of greyhound or wolfhound, I think - see photo) offered me tea. We wandered, as if in trance, from room to room, with sacred sounding music and scholarly voices expounding on ridiculous subjects emanating from unseen speakers. Some of the exhibits were patently false, while others perhaps had a grain of truth to them. Werner Herzog, and his concept of ecstatic truth (he differentiates between facts, which he calls "accountants truth" and ecstatic truth, which often has nothing to do with facts). It is probably not a coincidence that among the dvds in the museum shop there was at least one Herzog dvd.
At any rate, it was like visiting a museum in a strange alternate reality.
After that, Vic, Matt, and Jim Kaiser, who were staying in L.A. another day, parted ways with Jim Haynes and I.
Jim and I hit the road and promptly got stuck in traffic which would last most of the way out of the city. Once we'd been on the 5 for awhile the cars thinned out and we made good time.

Now I'm back home. The older kids are away at their dad's Willow is sitting on my lap, playing with Easter eggs and wiggling. Last night we went to a staff house party at my work. Willow was the only kid, but basked in the attention of the grown-ups. Jen made a delightful goat cheese pasta and some yummy lemon bars. Lots of other good food was on hand as well. It was nice to hang out with my co-workers in a non-work setting. I should do it more often.

Again with the slacking! I guess I have been sort of busy. A bunch of us got together at the Temescal Arts Center in Oakland last Saturday to do a series of short sets (mostly of the musical variety) which culminated in a longer set by Greg (as Thomas Carnacki) and company. It was fun. Lots of people attended (relative to the size of the space, anyway).

Work has been going well, and the snakes (Ringneck, Garter, and Rattle) are everywhere. I'm going to have a go at becoming the night supervisor so I can get benefits. More on that as things progress.

Tomorrow I head down to L.A. to catch a short Nurse With Wound set at Amoeba Records. It feels like forever since I've gone on a trip, so even though it's only to L.A. I'm excited to hit the road. I'll be back sometime on Friday though.

Life keeps distracting me from updating this page. It's also distracting me from writing my novel. I am, however, going to be performing at a show at the Temescal in Oakland next Saturday, at an event put together by my brother. So are lots of other people. I'll post something more specific here when I get the chance.

The work week flew by again, slightly marred by the usual snafu during the set-up for the astronomy program at our second site. After a power cable was found and a password became known, the only thing we had to deal with was a laptop with a dead screen. We got around that by attaching it to a projector and projecting the image onto a movie screen. That's what we were trying to do anyway, since the whole point of the struggle was to show the campers our astronomy slide show.

On Thursday night, Matt and I went up to a bar called Amnesia to see Faun Fables, who were excellent. Black Bird Stitches and Mandrake opened the show. Also excellent. A show review may show up on my other site.

Then, on Saturday, Jen and I, accompanied by Matt, all went to see Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at Slim's, also in S.F. We even went out for Ethiopian food before the show. Our getting to go out together is such a rarity that it had me smiling all night. The food and the show helped too, as both were excellent. Again, a show review is pending.

And finally, a quote from Willow, who when asked where the video remote was, replied, "the 'mote is buried in the cemetery!"

Uncertain Vole, originally uploaded by Corbie.

This is a Vole, not to be confused with a fat mouse. I find a lot of them under boards and scraps of sheet metal around our school. This particular Vole has carved out a veritable warren of runs underneath a pile of boards in our education garden. They usually run away before I can photograph them.
I got an e-mail via Flickr today from a guy named Colin who works at a non-profit organization in England. He wants to use my Vole photos for an educational display they're doing. If only the Vole knew that it was destined to become an international celebrity. Not that it would care. Check out the website here.

We went on our so-called "all day" hike today. I say "so called" because in reality it's only about five and a half hours. We used an hour or so of that time to hike up to Lake Ranch Reservoir, where we explored a bit. As we started out on a quick excursion to the far end of the reservoir, there was a loud noise from the woods on the far shore, followed by a puff of smoke. We all agreed it sounded like a gunshot. I quickly turned around and got the kids away from there.
On the trail down, we learned from a passing hiker that some teenagers were shooting a gun (32 caliber, he said) and that a small fire had been set. I radioed it in to our hub host (camp coordinator), but since we were so far from camp it took me several tries to break through the wall of static that always seems to plague us on longer excursions. He, in turn, called the park rangers, who sped past us in their trucks ten or fifteen minutes later. One ranger stopped to check in with me and confirm the story before speeding away.

And that's all I know. In real life, we don't always get to hear the end of the story. Sorry. Maybe I'll find out more later.

Green and Brown

Green and Brown, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Inspired by the Spring-like weather, we went up to Hidden Villa and wandered around the farm for awhile yesterday. Then we followed the creek trail, where Willow got to meet a horse and throw sticks into the water.
My main hiking goal was to go up the trail where the Coast Horned Lizards can sometimes be spotted. We saw none, but then again they usually don't come out until April. We did find a small Rattlesnake, which both Jen and I walked right past. It was a startled exclamation from Matt that called our attention to it. The frightened little snake quickly crawled off into the bushes. There were lots of wildflowers blooming too, including Indian Warrior and Hound's Tongue, to name a couple that I recognized. Banana Slugs and mushrooms of various colors were also to be seen.
Willow's favorite part of the trip was our visit to the cow enclosure. It's a treat to watch her interact with natural surroundings. We'll visit there again soon.

Click on the picture to see more.

The new week, minus the hour that was taken from us early Sunday morning, started with a new batch of kids at work. I have an high functioning autistic kid in my group, as well as one who doesn't speak English very well. Every week has its challenges. The autistic kid seems a little jumpy around the local wildlife. We've already come across a lot of animals, including a mouse, Ringneck snake, skinks, various salamanders, a Tree frog, one of the pond's Red-eared sliders, and a number of smaller critters. Spring has indeed come early.

I've written a few pages of my novel, which in some ways parallels my working life, but in other ways very obviously doesn't. I've also put together a (very) rough outline of how it's all going to fit together. I don't really have any illusions of finishing it by the end of the month, but I'll have something to show at least. I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to do for a performance Greg is putting together for the end of the month.

Oh, and read the Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, if you have the time (which I don't, but I read it anyway). It's good.

Smelling Something

Smelling Something, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Despite predicted rain (which never manifested), it has been like Spring around here this week. The reptiles, including Alligator lizards, Western Skinks, Western Fence lizards, Garter snakes, and Ringneck snakes, have been out in force. Lots of amphibians too. Pictured here is a Garter snake investigating its surroundings with a flick of its tongue.
I tried something new on the night hike this week. Last weekend, I bought a black light pen (which was supposed to be used for writing and reading "invisible" messages) to replace the portable black light that broke last season. On the night hike, I turned it on and played the beam across the trail as we walked. The millipedes, which reflect black light like scorpions do (they glow a jade green color) stood out from their surroundings like little, many-legged, greenish stars. We didn't see any scorpions though. Maybe next week.

After a couple of years of indecisiveness on the issue, I've decided to get my teaching credentials. I won't actually start the program until the Fall, but I've set things in motion. There will be costs both in money and in time, but in the long run it's a great investment. I'll have more job options, job security, and pay.

I'm also committed to writing a novel this month. Whether or not I'll have anything worthwhile to show for it come April remains to be seen.

I mention these things here so I can't quietly back out.

Newt at Home

Newt at Home, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Piccheti Pond, known to us at work simply as "the pond," hasn't been a pond since last Winter. Right now it is a concave meadow. Sadly, it is now home to quite a number of gravid California Newts. I witnessed a number of them emerging from holes under the dry grass out in what should have been the middle of the pond. Unless the rainy season kicks into high gear, there will be no pond for any of the local amphibians (there are also Western Toads and Pacific Tree Frogs nearby) to lay their eggs in. Yet another of nature's little tragedies. Perhaps some of the amphibians will find their way down to some other body of water. There are creeks and a reservoir nearby.

I took my group of kids up there today, and they had a good time exploring. We got to hang out for awhile with one of the other field classes. The area with the newts had a constant crowd of kids around it.

On the way back to camp, I saw a Coyote. About half of my group got to see it before it vanished in the trees up the slope.

Ringneck Snake Ring

Ringneck Snake Ring, originally uploaded by Corbie.

I found this little Ringneck snake upside down near the base of a tree. It was cold and raining, and at first I thought it was dead. I picked it up to show the twenty campers I was leading up the driveway back to camp, explaining to them that it was dead as I did so. Before I finished talking, I noticed that it had moved its tail ever so slightly. I revised my explanation at that point.
I'm not sure how it came to be upside down in the cold rain. Perhaps it fell out of a crevice in the bark of the tree I found it near. Maybe it had been out and about earlier in the day before the rain moved in. Whatever the case may have been, it was the easiest time I've ever had catching a Ringneck snake.

Home Again

Home Again, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Jen is home, and we're all happy to see her. Her luggage managed to get stuck in the chute at the airport, so while baggage handlers where trying to figure out how to extricate it, the kids all got whinier and grouchier out in the arrival lounge. They had been behaving pretty well up until then too. It's a pity. Here you can see them all clinging to her like lampreys. Smiling lampreys. Sounds kind of ominous, doesn't it?

She's feeling pretty jet-lagged of course, and went to bed early with the girls. None of us got to spend as much time with her tonight as we would have liked. There's always tomorrow, when she's rested. At least everybody is healthy again... for the time being.

Raining outside again. I can hear the slsshing of tires as cars drive past. It'll be a muddy week at work.

Four Already

Four Already, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Willow turned four today. Jen is still in Barcelona, and the three older kids are at their dads, so the two of us went to the zoo together, and then the beach. Later, she opened a couple of presents and we had cake and ice cream.

Next week she gets a proper party. That said, we had a great time hanging out together today.

Happy birthday Willow!

Jen is most likely on stage with Nurse With Wound right now. Hope she's having fun.

As far as the flu is concerned, I seem to have gotten off lightly. I shivered my way through a fever last night, but feel much better this morning. If the rain holds off, Willow and I might go to the park later.

Oops. I take it back. Sophie threw up again. Willow very sweetly held the bowl for her. Nate's going out on a play date. I don't blame him, since he's the only kid who hasn't gotten this bug yet.

It's Friday afternoon already, and at least nobody is throwing up. Alex claims that he could puke at any time, but he hasn't done so since last night, so he might be out of the stomach flu woods. Sophie's weird rash, which developed yesterday and necessitated a trip to the grocery store for some skin cream, has gone away just as mysteriously as it arrived. She says she still feels sick though - stomach pain and general achiness. Willow and Nate are fine, although Nate, for whatever reason, has decided not to eat. Maybe he's gotten food shy after watching all of his siblings barfing their little hearts out over the last few days, and hearing about his mom doing it too. Maybe he's just not hungry.

I'm a little achy, with some stomach pain, but haven't thrown up. Fingers crossed that I'll evade that particular scenario.

Willow decided that she wanted to watch Ralph's World this morning. Appropriate.

With apologies to Jen for stealing her idea, here's a blow by blow account of yesterday:

7:32 AM
Willow wakes me up, decides it's time for the day to begin. I make her breakfast (cereal, string cheese, and milk). She wants to watch the Tigger movie.

7:45 AM
Willow watches Tigger movie and forgets to eat most of her breakfast.

8:15 AM
E-mail checking time, with Townes Van Zandt playing in the background. Willow still enraptured by the antics of Tigger and friends.

8:45 AM
Sophie wakes up, has cereal and milk. Joins in the Tigger-watching festivities. I put songs in my I-tunes library.

8:55 AM
I fix myself some eggs and toast, to be washed down with generous amounts of coffee. Read paper.

9:05 AM
First shower in days.

9:15 AM
The girls want to play, so I join them in the living room for some Care Bear fun.

9:20 AM
Oh yeah, dishes need doing. Sorry girls. I finish dishes, then go back to play with girls some more. Girls decide that they want to play a video game, and rope me in to help Willow with her controls.

10:25 AM
I finally escape from video game, none the wiser about how to play it. I remove laundry from dryer, realize it's not dry yet. I put laundry back in dryer and go pick up room while listening to Black Bird Stitches.

10:50 - 11:02 AM
Check e-mail, followed by general picking up and trying to decide what to do next.

11:20 AM
Oh, I know! How about more laundry!

11:45 AM
Boys finally come home from friend's house, only 2 hours and 45 minutes later than expected.

Noon
I succumb to pressure and we all go to Taco Bell. Surprisingly, nobody pitches a fit about anything (with the semi-exception of Sophie) and we make it back in one piece. Consumption of poor quality food ensues.

12:37 - 1:08 PM
Check e-mail and fart around on the computer. Damn, I sure check my e-mail a lot.

1:10 PM
I start cleaning out car and switching over laundry. About halfway through folding I see a small, clean piece of poop in the dryer, which goes a long way towards explaining why all of the clean clothes exude the subtle odor of shit.

1:30 PM
Time to clean the dryer. I wipe it down and leave the door open to air it out.

2 PM
I finish cleaning out car. Recycling is full. Take out recycling. Now listening to Scott Walker.

2:30 PM
Nate is on the computer playing games. I'm listening to Comus while I sort papers.

2:56 PM
The girls want to go outside, so we all finish getting dressed and venture into the yard. It's cloudy and windy. I take some pictures and we hang out on the lawn. The sun comes and goes

3:25 PM
Sophie leans over and bestows partially digested Taco Bell food upon the gutter. The quantity is impressive. I take the girls inside and put Sophie in the bath.

3:35 PM
While Sophie is bathing, I go back to doing laundry.

3:45 PM
Sophie is out. The girls are watching Beauty and the Beast. I check e-mail and further enlarge my I-tunes library.

4:11 PM
Sophie pukes into handy bowl.

4:16 PM
More laundry! More putting away of clothes!

4:24 PM
Notice spottiness of vanity mirror. Clean vanity mirror. Willow wants to play. I help her put on princess costume.

4:30 PM
Sophie pukes again.

4:35 PM
Get mail and immediately put most of it in the recycling bin.

4:37 PM
Looks like rain. I put floor mats (out because Willow puked on them a couple of days ago) back in van.

4:44 PM
Alex is e-mailing Jen. I stop him from writing overly nasty things about his sister.

4:50 PM
I notice that Alex furtively covers the computer screen with his hand whenever I pass by.

4:55 PM
Sophie pukes again.

5:07 PM
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Sophie pukes again.

5:15ish PM
Sophie drifts off to dreamland. Willow wants to play. Nate wakes up. What the hell? I thought he was just doing something quiet in his room - turns out he's been asleep since right after lunch and doesn't know what day it is. I predict a late night.

5:50 PM
Sophie wakes up. Pukes.

6 PM
The boys leave with their dad. Sophie stays home on the couch with her ever present bowl and a cheesy dinosaur movie. Willow has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Girls quietly watch movie. I eat some canned chili and make coffee.

At some point, Greg calls. I talk to him for about 45 minutes. Apparently it's too hard to fly to Burkina Faso. He is, however, going to join Jen and Matt in Barcelona. The OAC page is back up and running!

7:40 PM
Willow gets in the bath.

8 PM
Boys come home

8:30 ish
I cover Sophie's bed with towels and get in bed with the girls. They fall asleep relatively quickly.

8:45 PM
Alex is in his room. I hang out and talk with Nate while music loads into I-tunes. We decide to watch a couple of episodes of X-files.

9 PM
We sit down in front of the TV. Sophie wakes up and pukes. I help her to the bathroom and then clean her pillow. Back in bed, she falls asleep almost instantly.

9:05 to after 11 PM
Nate and I watch X-files.

11:15ish PM
Nate goes to bed. I e-mail Jen. I sit up and read, then listen to I-pod.

Midnight or so
Sophie wakes up and pukes. I help her to the bathroom and strip sheet off bed due to wet spots. After everything is cleaned up, she goes back to sleep.

1 AM
I go to sleep.

Now, the day after, Sophie appears to be fine. Fingers crossed. Hope nobody else gets it.

Here's a short poem, written by a girl named Wren, who was in my field class earlier in the year. Most of the student writing I see is, I'm sad to say, quite forgettable. This little poem stood out.

I am not alone
darkness
As I write in the cold rain
I think of hope, and I dream
Just one more time please
Night noises, so serene, beautiful, peaceful
I am not alone

Tender Farewell

Tender Farewell, originally uploaded by Corbie.

Jen and Matt are in the air somewhere over the U.S. on their way to Heathrow in London and then on to Barcelona. I hope they have fun and actually get to relax every once in awhile. Jen plans to post updates on her site during her stay there. So stay tuned.

Matt spent the last couple of nights staying over at our place so we could watch the final few episodes of Six Feet Under. It's fun watching them with Matt because this is his first time through. Of course, he also stayed over so he and Jen could run through what Jen is going to be doing on stage with Nurse With Wound. It's a very minimal set-up, but I'll let Jen tell that story.

We decided to all go out to dinner last night at one of those all you can eat places. A fair amount of salad and a fair amount of brownies and gloopy soft-serve ice cream was consumed. Later, a fair amount of Willow's dinner came back up in the van on the way home, soaking many things and making it necessary for a good portion of the van's contents to be hosed down. While Jen and Matt took care of the hosing, I got poor Willow into the bath.

She barfed several more times before going to bed - one time actually into the bowl that we had provided her with. Today, she seems fine.

So it's just me and the kids for the next few days. The boys have already made plans to spend the night at a friend's house tonight. Outside, the clouds have moved in, with rain in the forecast over the next couple of days.

First Rattlesnake of the Year

First Rattlesnake of the Year, originally uploaded by Corbie.

I spent Sunday supervising the Weekend Work Crew inmates. We'd only been there an hour when one of them discovered a baby Rattlesnake on the steps leading to the dining hall. This is an unusual find for February, but the last few days have been warm. The Rattlesnake, however, was quite cold, so it was easy to push it onto the only thing I had with me - my clipboard. I walked around with the snake on my clipboard for about ten minutes before finding little cage to put it in. During that whole time, it barely flicked a tongue at me.

At the first opportunity, I relocated it to the meadow.

One of the work crew guys was overenthusiastic in cleaning the nook (staff/program storage area) and I actually had to rescue a lot of items from the trash and either put them back or recycle them. I explained to him that since one the main focuses of our program is conservation, we reuse or recycle just about everything, and because of this, tend to be packrats. He apologized. It makes me wonder how many other times good stuff has been thrown out. After all, I only supervise the work crew once every few months. Who knows what else has been thrown out?

Apparently our treasure is the work crew's trash.