Today, I was able to hike through our woods with five Senior Lodge girls (our “Pioneers”) who are passionate about wild places. Not only have they learned a lot of hard skills through our program like orienteering, building shelters, lighting fires in wet weather and so many more; but they’ve begun to fall in love with the wilderness. “Look at this caterpillar!” , “Do you remember which one is the striped maple?”, “Why do you think there are so many salamanders in this pond?”. As I answered their questions with more questions, inside I was ecstatic to discover their genuine curiosity and deep connection with nature. Part of our morning was them enthusiastically planning an activity for the younger campers to share both their knowledge and love of the outdoors.
After a brief experience with camping (and great food), our First Lodgers (9-10 year olds) and Big Lodgers (11-12 year olds) left for their overnight trips today. As I drove a group of First Lodgers off to a nearby lake to begin their canoeing adventure I listened to them excitedly sing and chatter the whole way (a few were even conducting interviews as a part of a radio show—since we provide our own entertainment in our vans). All of our First Lodgers will be canoeing and hiking over the next couple of days and the Big Lodgers will either canoe, hike, rock-climb, gain wilderness/ outdoor living skills, or do a service project at a local Vermont farm. Tomorrow night, our Senior Lodge campers leave for an overnight trip at local shelters.
When I’ve checked in with our staff this week, they’ve reported that their campers are bonding extremely quickly and well. They’re diving into our programming with gusto.
I’m off to hike the ridge with the Crickets!
The following is list of just some of the things we did together in the first half of our summer.
OLS:
- Fire-burning strings 1.5 feet off of ground, making large fires to cook over (wild edible tempura, dough on a stick).
- Wild edible salads, other snacks.
- Wandering A LOT- bush whacking, getting lost/un lost, primitive orienteering where one leads their partner down a specific path by telling a story that reflects the landscape or though other forms of explanation to lead them to a treasure, following streams, going to Peggy’s Pond.
- Awareness activities: Drum stock where blindfolded campers search for a counselor who is playing a drum, string stock where campers follow a string blindfolded, mother dear where campers try to steal items that are next to a blindfolded campers without being heard
- Botany! Animals! Nature hikes! LOTS of identifying of trees and wildflowers (our goal is to ID everything around camp to put in a zine for Fair with stories and recipes), LOTS of checking out scat and other signs of animals, trapping chipmunks and letting them go, checking out the fish, nymphs, crayfish, etc., that live in the reservoir, listening to birds.
- Lots of scavenger hunts.
- Sit spots!
- Soft skills: Team building through fires and cooperation games, leadership, awareness, curiosity.
- Afternoons have been full of more focused activities like learning how to be sneaky, preparing certain wild edibles such as burdock, learning how to ax, carving spoons, camouflage.
- Adventure Day- letterboxing! finding a hidden public cache and leaving a stamp print from our hand made stamps and hanging out by the prettiest pond. We also accidentally found a geo cache.
BARNS AND GARDENS
Garden Afternoon:
- IB jug band (with a new song written with Izy)
- Weed whole garden/rock removal
- Meet IB animals/walk them
- Seed identification
- Seed bombs (compost, wild flower seeds, clay)
- garden sign
- mini potted plant, take back to cabins (sunflowers)
- garden games
- garden haiku
- cob oven bread!
Homesteading:
- Ice cream
- Cheese, yogurt, sour cream
- butter
- Herbalism, plant identification, made mint lip balm, teas (yarrow and raspberry leaf) with Barbara, who is the IB nurse
- visited local homestead (Farm Manager Chantal Deojay’s house)
- naturally dying wool
Animals:
- Walking calves
- walking goats
- trimming goat hooves
- moving sheep
- moving cows
- setting up fences
- making pigs camper friendly
- bathing pigs
- cleaning chicken coop
- cleaning rabbit hutch
- cleaning barn
- brushing rabbit, keeping fiber for spinning
- animal observations
- Chores! Two times a day, everyday at 6 a.m. and 4:15 p.m.
Garden:
- weeding
- planting
- Grub theater kitchen garden (along with work projects)
- sheet mulching
- potato-bug patrolling
- flower circle love
- harvest days Tuesdays and Fridays (where we bring Indian Brook harvest to Tamarack Farm for washing/recording)
- compost, take temperature of piles
- Sun tea
Other:
- Food/social justice discussions
- F&W food system vs. conventionally grown food in California
Work Projects
- Themes: Carpentry, Craft, Conservation
- Purposes: To take care of this place and each other; community, connectedness, stewardship to develop skills & confidence, including joy in work; creating, creativity & commitment to finishing well.How do we do this?We introduce basic skills of design and making things, with increasing complexity and independence with as determined by the camper’s age and experience.We have much laughter and attend to safety, with an awareness of ourselves, others and our physical world.
PROJECTS
Finished building a trash shed
Trail work—including building steps with cedar logs.
Beautifying “Grub Theatre”—turning it into an herb garden (joint project with B&G) and fixing old seating as well as adding new
Repaired chicken coop nesting boxes
Built a few new meeting benches
In our apprenticeship areas; car (oil change) and bike maintenance, building a timber-frame cabin, taught Big Lodge the basics.
carving, wood burning, open shop for smaller projects such as shelves.
CREATIVE ARTS:
Guitar chords and song-writing
Water color group quilt
Painting
Needle work: Embroidery
Bead work: Making patches
Glass work: Stained glass windows
Pottery: Wheel work and sculpture
Felting
Tied dye
Various types of dance
