We’ve been here for what feels like ages and moments at the same time. In the last few weeks campers have been on amazing adventures near and far. They’ve built beautiful friendships and worked through tough moments. I’ve been endlessly impressed with the skill and initiative of the staff this summer who have led some of the consistently best activities I’ve seen. We’re working a lot on baskets and containers, as well as antler-handled and stone knives. It’s… awesome.
Sadly, it’s also coming to an end for a bunch of campers and a few staff. We’re saying goodbye this week to friends new and old, including three really strong staff members. Moon’s Embrace left this morning and will be in Japan by the end of the week where he’ll be teaching English for the next year. Forge Song is finishing his first summer at Farm and Wilderness and we look forward to having him back for the full summer next year. Hawk Shadow is also departing after holding a powerful place in our community as the true pillar of our wilderness skills program. His mentoring will be sorely missed, but I’m sure we’ll get him back too.
To give you a sense of the rowdy and wonderful crew of staff this summer, here’s our official FC 2009 staff photo:
Though the end is coming, we also just welcomed a handful of FCers into the community by giving them FC names. Please join me in holding these inspiring young men in the light: Robin Friend, Linden Brushes the Clouds, Otter Dreams, Chestnut Jay, Stone Turtle Shines and the counselor now known among his brothers at Flying Cloud and his friends in the Farm and Wilderness Community as Tundra Warrior Sings.
I’m sad to have to talk about this part, I do want to remind you of the pickup schedule for campers going home this Friday, July 24th. Parents of guardians retrieving their FCer can arrive as early as 9:00AM, and are expected to head down the road by 2:00PM at the latest. Folks who are coming up to visit their full-season camper can stay until 5:00PM and are invited to join us for lunch. As usual we strongly discourage taking your camper out of camp, but we’re aware that there are good reasons to do so, and that’s okay as long as he’s back by 5:00. I look forward to seeing you all soon.