This week I pointed out to my staff that the summer’s almost over! It’s hard to believe but after nine months of preparing, it certainly feels that way.
Campers left on their First Half trips just a few days ago and arrived back in camp tired, dirty, hungry and happy. It was great to have them home, and we’re all excited to share stories from the adventures we had. The only group that’s not back yet is of older campers who went for a week up to Flagstaff Lake in Maine. They’ll be back on Tuesday and we’re definitely looking forward to having our full community back together again. Adventures this week that I’ve heard about so far included having Quaker Meeting on top of Killington Mountain, swimming in Little Rock Pond in the rain and sneaking back into Flying Cloud one night to “steal” s’mores ingredients from a group of inattentive counselors! The campers were certainly busy.
We’re all really thankful that the weather on trips was almost perfect. Warm, sunny and only one afternoon of rain. It seems like summer might finally be in full swing and we’re happy about it. One pretty amazing sign that it’s summer was in the world of the birds. This week we got the opportunity to watch a young vireo learn to fly! Over the course of a few days, after finding it resting on a root by the breakfast table, we watched as it was fed grubs by its parents until it grew strong enough to fly up into the trees. We didn’t see it today, but can only hope that it’s doing well. Here are a couple of cool photos. Kind of ugly now, but a mature vireo is quite lovely. Keep an eye out for them around you too!
For all you parents out there who have a camper at FC this July and are planning to come up to visit, you should soon receive a letter talking about first half Visiting Day! It’s a great time every year, and we really look forward to seeing as many of you as can make it and giving you a little taste of what Flying Cloud is like for your son.
