The Wind in the Avocados

My job is tied to the school year, although school has been in session for nearly a month and our first day of summer camp is today. Our inservice week was last week, and coincided with a mini-heatwave, with temperatures climbing into the triple digits. For once, it didn't really matter, because around 90% of the time, we were inside, listening to people talk. Now that the Office of Education has turned its gaze directly upon us, an attempt has been made (and I paraphrase a co-worker here) to "fit a square peg into a round hole" and make our jobs more traditional in structure. The job of a naturalist (or anybody who works at a camp) is by its very nature, flexible in terms of hours worked. Going forward, more attention is being paid to the administrative side of things, and our schedules have all changed to reflect this. My schedule is among the few that has actually improved, in that I'll be working fewer hours but still getting paid the same. Of course, in the past I'd sometimes be at work for 12 hours straight but only get paid for 10, a fact that I didn't complain about because on an average night, I'd probably only work for a couple of hours, with a vast swathe of free time in between.

So, this week we got information about mandated reporting, hashed out the schedule changes, got reminded of our duties as Disaster Service Workers (which simply means that if disaster strikes, we can't abandon the kids in our care), re-upped our first aid and CPR certifications, got treated to Ethiopian food for lunch (a highlight), weeded the garden (which was nice after all of the sitting), and hashed out the schedule changes some more. The humorous part was watching a room full of active people squirm through hours of inactivity. That included myself, of course, but it helps to see the humor in uncomfortable situations. It makes them more bearable.

Sunday was our open house, during which parents and students come up to tour the site. I brought Willow along, and she amused herself by coloring, doing homework (okay, that part wasn't too amusing), and coming along when I took a group of parents and kids down to the nature lab. From my perspective (and from the perspectives of everybody else I talked to), the day went smoothly. We're more or less ready for the school year now, despite some lingering concerns about the new schedule.

Willow had a soccer game this weekend too. Did I mention that she's playing soccer at the moment? Her team won, scoring the only goal of the game.

Today is windy and cool, and punctuated by the sounds of avocados hitting the ground. The tree was creaking so alarmingly that I went out in my slippers and did some quick pruning, pulling enough avocados from the pile of branches I created that we filled a box.

Shortly afterward, a different branch snapped off and hit the fence. Fortunately, the fence is strong and didn't get knocked over. Perhaps even more fortunately, nobody had parked on the other side of it.

All of these things falling from the sky are irritating the chickens, who especially kicked up a fuss while I was pruning. Four of the five chicks have proven to be roosters, and Jeanine has already found people willing to take them off of our hands. For now though, they are rampaging around our yard.

What I Did During My Summer Vacation

My Three weeks off can be divided into three discrete sections. During the first week, I took care of a number of things that I'd been putting off doing, like getting my car maintained, renewing my driver's license (it expired last December, a fact which I didn't notice until late May), cleaning up my corner of the garage, and generally getting ready for the second week, during which Greg and I went on a road trip to Lava Beds National Monument and Portland. This past week, I've been going through photos from the trip, listening to music bought during the trip, reading novels, and loafing. Oh, and I made some quacamole. This last is noteworthy because I used avocados from our tree. Usually, the squirrels beat us to them, but for some reason (hawks, drought, what have you), they've been falling down on the job lately. Our tree is a Mexicola avocado tree, which produces avocados with an interesting anise flavor, making for equally interesting guacamole.

As for the Lava Beds trip, I was happy that Greg managed to find the time to go this year, since last year he ended up backing out of the trip at the last minute (we ended up running into my two road trip companions from last year, Lucia and Jellyfish, while we were in Portland - see my music blog about our Portland adventures here).

I had been watching the news about wildfires and their attendant smoke during the week leading up to the trip, but I needn't have worried. If anything, Lava Beds was much more smoke free than last year. The trip up went off as planned (which makes for boring reading - sorry), with our only stops being for gas somewhere north of Redding, and then at a cafe in Weed which I think I've visited every time I've passed through there. The woman at the counter mentioned that she'd just been to Lava Beds and told me to watch out for rattlesnakes, which I thought was funny due to my excessive familiarity with them.

We got to Lava Beds with enough time to wander through Mushpot and Labyrinth/Thunderbolt caves. We also climbed to the top of Schonchin Butte, where the wind did its best to whip us off into space. After hiking back down we were treated to a beautiful sunset.

Unfortunately, the expected starscape wasn't visible due to the cloud cover. My habitual search of the bathrooms for interesting arachnids only turned up one tiny scorpion, which promptly hid underneath the door frame to one of the stalls.

The next day, I had a bad moment when the electronic key fob to my car seemed inoperable (which meant that I couldn't start the car). After some fiddling, during which there really doesn't appear to be a way to start the car without it, it mysteriously started working again. My hypothesis is that the battering it took overnight due to the wind (which constantly uprooted our tent stakes during our stay) while it was in one of the pockets on the inside wall of the tent, somehow caused it to temporarily stop functioning.

During our circuit of cave loop road, we didn't see a single person inside the caves and only a pair of cars on the road. The park we virtually deserted, which is another reason I like it. In fact, the only people we saw inside the caves were in the immense Skull Cave (at the bottom of which we found some icicles), and one guy in nearby Big Painted Cave. Inside the little alcove in the rear floor of Big Painted Cave, there is still a substantial pool of water, partially frozen in places. There was a small trail cam set up to monitor the space, no doubt keeping tabs on what species of animal use it as a watering hole.

Lava tube caves always look like they should be powerfully resonant inside, but the air always ends up being dry and dead sounding. That doesn't stop us from trying though.

The two places we visited that I hadn't visited before were Fleener Chimneys - a series of spatter cones, and Gillem's Camp/Gillem's Bluff. At the end of the bluff trail, there was a pile of rocks containing offerings in the form of stones, coins, and even a small, broken elephant figurine. The view along the scarp was amazing from this vantage point, as are most of the views within the park.

In the evening, we hiked out along Three Sisters trail, going farther than I went with Jellyfish and Lucia last year. We found a massive lava tube, mere feet from the trail. The collapsed portion of the tube gave way to yawning black entrances to the east and west, but there was no safe way to descend to them in the waning light, so we just took pictures from the rim (which in no way do justice to the sight).

On the way back, we went off trail to try to find crickets, using the time honored tradition of cupping our ears and following the sound. Coming back after our unsuccessful attempts to locate them (too many, which made it confusing), I almost stepped on a rattlesnake (which made me laugh, due to the woman in Weed warning me about them). It shot into some nearby scrub, tail buzzing. My subsequent attempts to locate it failed, so I think it eventually wormed its way into some available nook under the plants, maybe even into the covered lava tube it had been resting on. it was dusk by this point, and rattlesnakes (as well as other reptiles), sometimes use this time to soak up some extra heat from warm rocks (or asphalt, which often leads to roadkill).

The night, with a beautiful moon above, once again proved to be not conducive to star gazing.

In the morning, on our way out, we visited Petroglyph Point, joining a ranger-led talk about the Modoc people. We got to try out an atlatl, throwing fletched spears at a target. None of us actually hit it, but I came close. Nearby, we came across a sleeping Barn Owl, snug in a dark recess near the bottom of the cliff. As always, the ground was littered with the bleached bones of rodents.

Leaving Petroglyph Point, we heading north into Oregon, and soon the dreaded smoke reduced the day to an eerie shadow of itself. This lasted for a good amount of time, and was strangely beautiful. Unfortunately, this ghostly beauty comes at great expense.

During a delay caused by one-way traffic control (road repair/construction), we looked left and saw this. Ha.

Summer Camp Is Over For Another Year

Summer camp is officially over for another year. The final week was a good one, with a number of veteran councilors on the job and some familiar faces among the campers, including at least one girl who has a polarizing effect on staff opinions. I admire her intelligence and adventurousness, while others can't get past the fact that she tends to be bossy and mean to other kids (maybe because they haven't been around her enough to see her good side shine through). In her case, I take the bad with the good and try to subtly guide her away from being too obnoxious. Sometimes it even works.

The last Thursday night barbecue/campfire (during which we don't actually eat anything barbecued or have a fire burning) of the season was an emotional one. It was the last campfire that my friend and longtime staff member, Scooby, would be attending as a full staff member. Back in the Spring, he had quietly announced that he would be quitting so he could focus on being a full-time dad. He goes reluctantly, and only because he has issues with his vision and back that are making it harder and harder to be a group leader. Due to this being his last campfire, people came out of the woodwork to be there, including old staff members, staff members from other camps, teachers from local schools, and various councilors from past years. Jeanine and Eva came up, as did Willow and all of her siblings. He the most well-loved person I know, and it's completely deserved. He is also perhaps the most humble person I know, which is just one of many reasons he deserves all of the accolades he receives. Somebody really should do a documentary about him. We'll all miss him, although he'll still be around in some capacity or other.

It's the end of an era.

Check out Scooby telling stories here.

Here are some photos from the final critter hunt of the week:

Ahead of me there are three weeks off.

Death From Above

A couple of mornings ago, the chickens started clucking up a louder than usual racket. I went out and looked around, but couldn't figure out what had them so bothered, so I went back in to finish my breakfast. They kept it up for long enough that I figured I'd give it another look. This time, I spotted the small Cooper's Hawk that was hiding in the upper branches of the avocado tree. Once it discovered that its cover was blown, it relocated to a nearby power pole.

It was small enough that it wouldn't be able to give the adult chickens much of a problem, but I'm sure it would love to get its talons on one of the new chicks. Speaking of the chicks, just the day before that, one of them managed to wiggle its way out of the coop. When I looked out, it was obliviously running around the yard. It's a good thing the hawk wasn't around then. Earlier today, Jeanine saw the chicks catching cockroaches, so they're definitely not quite at the bottom of the food chain.

Eventually, it gave up and darted off across the rooftops. Hopefully, it forgets it ever saw our yard. It's a good thing that hawks aren't as smart as crows.

Two More Weeks of Summer Camp Fly By

The final week of Trailblazers suddenly became the penultimate week of summer camp for the year, and just as suddenly, I find myself inhabiting the breathing space between the penultimate and the ultimate. The last Trailblazers week was a good one, with our lead teacher's daughter being in my group. She was the only one to find a snake all week too, although it was a tiny one. Plus, to the surprise of her dad, she held the dead Wolf Spider I found in the pool filter. Poor spider.

Once back in the warm clutches of regular summer camp, I reverted back to my usual habits of spending lots of time looking for snakes and other critters. I had 24 kids in my group, which is 7 more than I had in my biggest Trailblazers group.

There was a tiny rattlesnake coiled up at the base of a tree by the pond, but the usual ones in the hole near the field weren't in evidence all week.

We stumbled across a Red-eared Slider laying eggs near the pond as well. Despite the fact that Sliders are an invasive species hereabouts, this was a really cool thing to watch.

The Western Chorus Frogs are still very much in evidence (thanks to the local bullfrogs being eradicated), and my favorite discovery was a log full of them. Here they can be seen peeking out one of their windows.

Other critters were in evidence too, although not as many as some previous years.

Time was spent at the creek, and kids explored the tunnel under the trail.

Thursday night, we were treated to a spectacular sunset, and then, while I was telling a story to the campers before the night hike, a brief deluge. It's kind of distracting to get rained on while telling a story. The nearly constant lightning was also a head turner.

We made a quick, unprecedented decision to have the kids sleep in the picnic shelter and summer shack (our summer name for the old dining hall) rather than out on the field. This meant a lot of last-minute scrambling as around 150 people had to move all of their sleeping gear, but it was done smoothly. The night hike was delayed by only around a half an hour, and it was a night hike to remember, punctuated as it was by flashes of lightning and sporadic bursts of rain. Mine seemed to have extra lightning, but it was just some kid wearing light-up shoes. Friday morning, we were tired.

At the reservoir, we got to witness a Great Blue Heron chasing a Great Egret. Maybe they were arguing about who is actually greater. Maybe not.

At home, the fertile eggs that Jeanine purchased at Safeway hatched. We have five little fluffy chicks, which doubles the number of chickens living in the backyard. One has already proven to be more adventurous than the others, scrambling over the makeshift barrier that Jeanine erected in the doorway at the top of the ramp and following the big chickens into the yard.

Perhaps miffed at all of the new company, Henrietta has taken to hiding her eggs in the foliage.