Today, at the closing ceremony for Willow's softball league, Willow was presented with a "Sportsman of the Year Award" plaque for her age division. I'm a proud father. She definitely earned it too. Afterward, I took her to a birthday party at nearby Vasona park, and while she partied, I walked to nearby Lexington reservoir, which is about 4 miles away.

Where the trail starts to ascend the back side of the dam, I found this little critter.

Like I did the last time I picked up a Gopher snake on the trail (hiking up Mission Peak with Willow), I stepped into naturalist mode and did a quick presentation for a nearby family, and then released it off the trail so it would be less likely to get run over by one of the many cyclists who fly down the path.

The reservoir itself actually has a decent amount of water in it.

The trail itself was hot and dusty.

When I got back to Vasona, Willow was out on a peddle boat, working on her sunburn.

Also of recent note, Willow's oldest brother, Alex, just graduated from high school. When I started this blog, he was a little six year old boy who preferred to be known as "Lexy". This makes me feel old. He also has had his first car accident, which gave the two middle kids, Sophie and Nathan, mild concussions, and did some pretty serious damage to his car.

Betrayed

Today is the last day of science camp for the 2014/2015 school year. On Monday, we start setting up for nine weeks of summer camp. I will be working five weeks of day camp, and four weeks of our newish Trailblazers program. The forest is menacingly dry, and we'll have to be careful on windy days.

There is a reason for the long space between this post and the previous one. Something happened at camp that I've been hesitant to write about. Around a month ago, while at one of Willow's softball games, I got a call from my boss to inform me that one of my coworkers had been arrested for child pornography. Of course, I was floored. Just moments before the call, I had been talking with Sophie about how much we liked this person. After the call, and the person we thought we liked was proven not to exist. We had liked a fiction, a disguise. Since the arrest, he has also been accused of molestation, and there has been word that he was not only trading pictures online (which is what got him caught), but manufacturing them. I'm not sure how much is actually true, but at the very least, he had child pornography on his laptop and phone, so he belongs in jail and permanently away from children even if the other allegations turn out to be false.

At a subsequent work meeting, one of my other coworkers stated that it was like somebody had died. There has indeed been a grieving process, with all of the usual steps: disbelief, anger, determination to move on, and everything in between. For me, the feeling of betrayal is the one that has stuck. The media, being the sensationalist monster that it is, has inflamed things with article after article on the subject. The result has been general outrage amongst a vociferous minority of parents and other people tangentially associated with our program. Not that I blame them (the parents that is - don't get me started on the media), because I'm a parent too, and Willow herself has been under the care of this individual while at camp. You see, he was the only other employee to have my job description. He was the night supervisor at our second site. Willow went there as a camper last year. Of course, there are parents who seem to lack perspective. Maybe they've fallen prey to the media fear mongering, or maybe they're just easily upset. Willow mentioned that one of moms of a softball teammate won't even let her daughter go to sleepovers anymore (which has nothing to do with our camp at all) due to this news.

Speaking of Willow, one of my first thoughts upon hearing about the arrest was how to break the news to her. Sophie had been standing right next to me when I took the call, and I couldn't tell her what had happened. She knew something bad had happened, but all I could manage to do was reassure her that nobody had died or been injured. In the end, it turned out that I didn't have to break the news to any of the children in my life. The news was all over all of the schools by the next day. There is more than one way a child predator can rip away innocence. This is the indirect way.

All of our employees go through the standard background checking procedure. Even our volunteers are fingerprinted (with the exception of the ones who aren't adults yet). This obviously isn't foolproof. In the interim weeks, the Office of Education (which oversees our program) has been doing its own investigation into our past safety procedures, our director (my boss) has been forced into a leave of absence while the investigation is happening, and a security company has been hired to provide extra staffing for each site at night. So, for the past few weeks, I've been sharing my space with an elderly security guard whose main conversational gambit has been about how things are cheaper in India. He is a nice guy, although we don't have much in common, and his presence cuts into my alone time. Being an introvert, I seriously value my alone time, but we do what we must. This morning, it being the end of the school year, I shook hands with him and we parted ways. I don't imagine we'll continue having actual security guards on site, but I'll always have some sort of company during my shift from now on. The policy of having only one person awake at night at each site is permanently at an end. The vacant position at our second site is currently a rotating one, with staff members filling in as they can. Other changes are in the offing as well. Our reliance on low-risk offenders to do janitorial work is at an end, as the whole weekend work program has been canceled (this despite the fact that it's pretty common practice for educational institutions to take advantage of this program - Eva's school does, for example). Time will tell what the permanent changes will be. It's a work in progress, and what all of the consequences will be, we don't yet know.

I refuse to link to the news stories here, but they can be found with a few clicks and the relevant search words. I could write more, but I think I've gotten this off my chest now, so I'll end here.

More Photos

I'm falling behind on here again, so I thought I'd at least post a few photos from the last couple of weeks. The first few are from a hike that Willow and I did up to Mission Peak the weekend before the most recent one. The amazing thing is that she is the one who suggested the hike, which is a bit unusual for her, especially when one considers it involves a 2000 foot elevation change. The view from the top is spectacular though, and the day was beautiful.

On the way down, we saw a coyote running along the ridge line. It crossed the trail ahead of us and lounged in the grass awhile.

Near the peak, Willow almost stepped on a little Gopher snake. She did one of those little "avoid crushing the reptile" dances for a moment. I picked it up and the lady in front of us came back so she could take pictures of it. I switched to naturalist mode for a minute or two, then took my own pictures and let it go.

This is a picture showing the trail leading away from the peak. Yeah, it was kind of a pain in the butt to walk up it. Completely worth it though.

We never did get too close to the coyote, but it didn't seem to concerned by the nearby crowds.

There were lots of corvids riding the thermals, but not too many hawks or vultures.

It's a popular destination. The trail we took begins at Ohlone college, and most of the hikers seemed to be college students.

Willow, being a child of the 21st century, took lots of pictures with her iPod.

Of course, there are the obligatory "standing on top of the spire" photos, the taking of which usually entails waiting in line.

This was one of the last photos I took on the way down. It provides a nice contrast between the hills and the valley, and illustrates why I'd rather be in the hills.

At camp, there is a Gray fox who has incorporated visits to our compost buckets into its nightly routine. I set up the trail cam right outside my window one night, and got these photos.

Today, it is partially cloudy and there is a cool breeze. Our internet was out earlier, and had been since Saturday. This is a relatively common problem. Spring is definitely here though. The garden is full of green, and our artichoke plant could feed an army, if only because we fenced it off from the chickens.

Wild Visitors

Last year, toward the end of the summer, work began on updating our nature lab. The job is finally finished, and the new space looks great. While I went back to working nights this week, one of my coworkers was busy moving the animals back in. There is still some decorating work to be done, as well as some searching for new, more professional looking, display cages. Here are some photos of the empty space, in all of its Spartan glory:

There is a bold little gray fox hanging out at camp now. Early in the week, I heard that it had been spotted in the garden, so I set up my trail cam and sure enough, I got a couple of shots. In the first photo, I can almost imagine that the fox looks surprised at the presence of a camera, and in the second photo, there is just the gray blur of a hasty retreat.

On the way back up to camp from setting up the camera, I checked by the garden gate and found the usual kind of reptile.It was probably the most nervous rattlesnake I've come across. It spent a good portion of the night rattling, and my morning meeting with the cabin leaders was accompanied by its agitated buzzing sound. It eventually calmed down, and now it resides farther away from camp.

The fox came back on Thursday night, filling the niche once occupied by the local raccoons (I had seen a raccoon on Monday night - in fact, it didn't notice me at first and reacted to my sudden presence with a startled jump, but these days, there are rarely raccoons around camp at night) by rooting around in the compost buckets. This was my best chance yet to observe one of these foxes in action, and I was impressed all over again by how catlike they are. It reacted to my presence by moving off into the distance, eventually vanishing into the forest at the edge of camp.

As for the kids this week, they were well-behaved sixth graders from four different private schools. I had to dispense enough medicine that I felt like some sort of pharmacist. Some kids are definitely over-medicated, but this week, we definitely had our fair share of kids with serious medical conditions. There was a boy with diabetes, a girl with epilepsy, and a girl with cystic fibrosis. I'm reminded of a brief moment when Willow was barely a year old, when her mom and I were told that she might have cystic fibrosis. It was scary, and thankfully, a false alarm. My heart goes out to children struggling with chronic conditions, especially this one.

Diurnal

I ended up being completely diurnal this week due to a two day Diastat training session I attended. What is Diastat? It's a rectal gel. Why would I need to be trained in the usage of something as unappetizing sounding as rectal gel? Well, apparently there are some cases when the proper application of this gel might save a life. If a person is having a seizure, Diastat can stop it. If the seizure is outside of the norm (in duration), or if it's the first time a person has had a seizure and it doesn't appear to be stopping in a reasonable amount of time, I now have the training needed to get out a little plunger and stick some medicine up where the sun doesn't shine. I sincerely hope I never have to do this.

We got to practice this on dolls. It occurred to me that it might be more realistic if we used Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls, since they wiggle around. I even wrote this on the "suggestions for improvement" section of the feedback form we were all handed.

I was reminded of the time when Willow was barely more than a toddler, and had a febrile seizure, and how scared we were. I'm glad that was a one-time thing. It must be hard to be the parent of a kid with epilepsy.

Most of our staff got to miss this training, but the health aides and night supervisors attended. Squirrel, who is our permanent hub host at our second site, showed up for a little bit of it too. We discovered a little burrito place around the corner during our lunch break as well, which made enduring the sadly out of date videos slightly more bearable. In one video, All of the talking heads were wearing glasses big enough to allow their cheeks to see better. It was distracting. They were all digitized, but the schedule indicated that they were from the VHS era. I could almost imagine them being shown in Super 8.

On Thursday, I covered a field class for my friend, Big Brown Bat. The kids were great and the day was warm. I took the group up to Lake Ranch Reservoir, paying attention to my FitBit as we hiked. It seems that the hike I thought was around 5 miles long is actually over 6. We caught a couple of toads and a Garter snake, all first spotted by the kids. The Killdeer were out and about too, and a handful of kids got to see the heron that lives by the reservoir. It was a good day.

Home For Wayward Critters

Yeah, I know, no posts for almost two weeks and then two posts in one day. Color me inconsistent.

Most people, let alone young girls, freak out when large spiders appear in the bathtub. My stepdaughter Eva, on the other hand, wants to keep them as pets. Her current pet is a large, female jumping spider (I have yet to sit down and figure out the exact species), who has been living in a jar on our kitchen table for a few days now. It suddenly occurred to me that the spider might like the wax worms I'd bought for the Sandfish, so I dropped one in. Sure enough, in no time, the spider had pounced and retreated up the side of the jar with the wax worm dangling from her face.

I took pictures, of course.

This reminds me that I haven't mentioned a couple of other new additions to our menagerie (*goes and takes a handful of quick pictures, then runs back to computer*). In the middle of last week, Jeanine casually mentioned that she had just agreed to adopt a Ball Python (I love that we both have this kind of problem!). At about the same time, I got a Facebook message from my friend/coworker Cedar, offering us an iguana. He and his partner, Pika, had a pair of iguanas, but the nice one recently died, leaving behind the ass-hat iguana. Did I want said ass-hat? I hemmed and hawed, but eventually said yes. It didn't look like anybody else was showing an interest, so it was kind of a good deed for all concerned. I'm going to try to hold him regularly, and just maybe he'll calm down a bit. So far, he has shown a high opinion of mangoes, but a low opinion of everything else.

As for the python, it came with a sad story as well. Jeanine's friend got it a year ago while at a garage sale. It wasn't for sale, and when she asked about it, she was told that they were waiting for it to die. It was in a cage in the yard, and that is apparently where the people were keeping it. I don't know if it was a pet belonging to a kid who had gone off to college, or what, but it sounds like those particular people should have been arrested for cruelty to animals. Jeanine's friend isn't a snake person, and only took it because she felt sorry for it. Now, it lives with us.

Spring Continues...

Nearly two weeks have passed since my last entry here, but nothing really noteworthy has happened during that time. The kids at camp last week were adorably clueless, as fifth-graders sometimes are. To me, they seemed more like fourth-graders, which is unusual for this time of year. One expects September fifth-graders to seem young, but not April ones. Or should I say almost May?

Somewhat sporadically, I've been putting up my trail cam at night, but have been running afoul of the dew point. Once the dew point has been passed, condensation forms on the camera lens, leading to pictures like this:

Willow and I went for a hike at Rancho San Antonio this weekend, which given its proximity to the suburbs and free parking, was packed with large, loud family groups with their strollers and lunches. Once past Deer Hollow Farm, the people thinned out a bit. It's the same everywhere there are hiking opportunities: most people don't want to exert themselves by doing any actual hiking.

It's sometimes hard to convince Willow to go on hikes, but she generally has a good time once we hit the trail. We have some of our best conversations while walking together.

Surprisingly, given the drought, the little pond past the farm had some water in it. A pair of ducks were having a beach day, and the air vibrated with the hum of bees.

The new goats were doing goat stuff.

And the sky was bluer than blue.

Spring In My Step

The dark sky contemplated raining last night, and even washed us with a desultory drizzle for around an hour before deciding against it. During my nightly circuit of camp, I came across a female Western Toad squatting by a pair of milk crates on the front walk. I hassled her just long enough to take this photo, and then continued my walk.

There were a couple of kids who were full of tears for their distant homes. One was really insistent about leaving, almost like the boy who kept coming to see me last Monday night. I imagine there's a good chance he'll be gone by the time I get to work tonight.

In the wee hours I watched "Night of the Demon" (1957), which is based on the M. R. James short story, "Casting the Runes". It was quite good. Strangely, at one point a character announced, "it's 3:00 in the morning!" and when I turned to look at the time, I discovered that she was exactly right. Spooooooky.

On Sunday, I attempted to go to Hidden Villa and look for Horned lizards, but found the site closed for a private function. It looked like some sort of charity event. This didn't deter me though, because I knew that just down the street, off of Rhus Ridge Road, there is a trail that hooks up with the Hidden Villa trails I was planning on hiking. Long story short, I didn't find any Horned lizards, but hiked for over 5 miles on a beautiful Spring day. I didn't even have to shake any ticks from my legs. I did, of course, find every other kind of local lizard, and in quantity. The first two Fence lizards I encountered were... uh... intent on making more lizards. This morning at work, my friend Otter told me he had something to show me, pulled out his phone, and sure enough, he had a photo of a Horned lizard. He took in at the Grand Canyon though.

Here are a few photos from the hike:

Walking Through the Work Week

After some rain early (very early) Tuesday morning, and a gentle misting the following night, the sky has dried out. Out my window, I see a uniform bone-dry blue. Birds are flitting through the underbrush and taking a worrying interest in the garden. Yesterday, we witnessed a bird snacking on the snap peas. Birds don't understand the concept of ownership, which means our harvest, such as it is, won't be as bountiful as it might otherwise have been.

My work week breezed by. Jeanine recently got a pair of Fitbits from an online trading group (Listia, to be precise), and I've been using mine to log my activity (mainly walking, but also sleeping - it's kind of addictive). It's linked to an app. on my phone, so I can watch the step counter in action as I walk. This means that I've been moving more. My current walking goal is to complete my Walk To Mordor challenge by the end of June, which means I have to walk around 90 miles a month each month until then. So far, it hasn't been hard. I currently have 232 more miles to go, which is pretty good, considering that I started with 1779 of them. I started the challenge around 3 years ago though, and there have been some months in the interim during which I walked very little. At work, I walk loops around some of the camp buildings while the kids are sleeping. Last night, in the middle of a nearly 5 mile walk, a cabin leader came out and asked me what I was doing, and then wondered why anybody would want to do such a thing. Kids these days...

The homesick kid from the beginning of the week ended up going home on Tuesday morning. He came back for a whole hour on Thursday morning before falling apart again. Apparently he had a "spectacular" meltdown. I'm glad that I wasn't around for that. Despite counseling kids with these types of issues for a decade now, I really can't relate very well. I never felt that way as a child. Despite this, most of the time I can help them feel better quickly, but this particular kid wasn't having any of that. He seemed determined to be as miserable as possible. It is said that happiness is a skill. If so, this kid isn't very skilled. One of the teachers indicated that he is profoundly spoiled too, so I guess he is used to getting his way, and his way proved to be the highway.

I took Wednesday night off so Jeanine and I could go see Magma at Slim's in San Francisco. It was a profoundly excellent performance. A somewhat longer review will surface shortly on my music blog.

Shifting gears here, my old high school teacher, Bill the Fox Guy, is the subject of an article here. It's an interesting read. It has been a pleasure reconnecting with him.

Finally, I got a nice surprise this week in the form of a children's book. It was written and illustrated by Loretta Halter, who is a fifth grade teacher for one of the schools that brings students to camp every year. Last year, she gave each staff member a copy of this book, and this year, once again, I found a book in my inbox at work. This one. Inside, she wrote an appreciative message about me, something I'm sure that she did for all of the other staff members who worked the week she was at camp with her students. There was also a big thank you note from the kids, although I'm not sure if these were her students or not. A lot of schools have their kids write thank you cards to the staff, and sometimes kids take it upon themselves to thank us without being asked. Either way, we sometimes joke that these are our real paychecks. This is why we do what we do, and it's always nice to be thanked. Otherwise, I guess it would be a thankless task, wouldn't it? I'm really touched that Loretta took the time to do this. It made my week.

A Coyote and A School Trip

Other than one very persistent boy who came and visited me every time he woke up, I had a quiet night. It started dumping rain around 3:00 AM, and by morning there were puddles everywhere. The rain made no difference to the boy. He slogged through the cold and wet so he could inform me of his misery. At least he only had one complete meltdown, and that was early in the evening. All of this was because, of course, he was missing home. Nothing I said seemed to have much of an impact, which is somewhat unusual. I half expect to go to work tonight and find him gone. Maybe not though. Maybe he got over it. Most kids do.

After sunrise, as the kids were filing out of their cabins, I noticed that one cabin was unaccounted for. I found them gathered at the edge of the lower field, shouting about a wounded coyote. It was our friend Tripod, the three-legged coyote who has been hanging around camp for months. This was the first time I'd seen him (or her?) though. Not having my camera in my hands at the time, I took a couple of phone photos which, as predicted, turned out to be nearly useless. I'm including one here anyway.

Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post that Eva is on the East Coast with some of her classmates, taking part in a school trip to see the historical sights (or sites - both words work here, don't they?). Here's a picture of her playing in the snow while wearing a tank top. Apparently she is impervious to cold.

Where Does the Time Go?

I guess nothing noteworthy happened last week. Either that, or I just didn't find the time to blog. The kids at camp were well-behaved and not very needy, which is always a good combination. One of my favorite ex-coworkers, Raven, was up with her fifth grade class.

Willow had her open house, and she showed me lots of schoolwork saved on the school's Chromebooks. It's weird seeing a computer in front of every chair. Things sure have changed in the last few years. There was also an art show, which featured a couple of her art pieces.

I'm pretty impressed by these, especially the top one, and I'm glad that there is still an art program at her school. These days, so many of the important things in life seem to have fallen by the wayside, at least as far as curriculum goes.

Now, I'm up at camp on a Monday night. The wind is picking up and rain is promised by morning. This is what the sky looked like this evening when I picked Willow up after softball practice.

Willow gets the week off for Spring break this week. I don't.