um, i was out.

yeah, i just up and went camping without so much as a by your-leave.

you probably expected as much.

it's 28 days later and i have so many exciting things to tell you and some not exciting things.

but anyway, i'm back at the big tent with the stairs and the hard sides.

i have to think about it that way for a few days. it helps ease the shock.

2018 venture vermont: attend a state park interpretive program

last year i tried to go to the HERE BE DRAGONFLIES program at little river state park, but i wasn't reading a current schedule, so i missed it and instead turned up for demystifying mushrooms, which wasn't such a bad thing because i also like mushrooms.

this past saturday i went up to get the HERE BE DRAGONFLIES program, and although we didn't catch much, i did learn some things. i learned how to properly use a bug net, and i learned what some of the better field guides are.

plus brian is always interesting.

life wisdom

forced choice fun

recently the CDC picked me for their random health survey.

first question out of the gate: are you male, female, or transgender?

whoops, sorry. not going to answer that one. if the question had been "what's your gender?" i'd have answered it, because you can answer that question with any description of your gender you like. most people are STILL going to say male or female, but it doesn't force nonbinary folk into choosing the least uncomfortable box to wedge themselves into.

the nice lady explained to me WHY i have to answer that question, which boils down to many of the questions are gender specific.

and i said thanks. i understand that, but i don't support survey forms that force people into those three categories.

and she explained it again, and asked me the question again.

and i said yes, i understand, but i am not going to answer that question.

and she responded that she had no other choice but to conclude the interview.

and then called me "miss", which i think is kind of a breach of manners since i had chosen not to answer the gender question.

if you simply ask me my gender, i say female.

if you give me a multiple choice where people who are nonbinary are not free to say whatever they want, i will decline to answer.

statistically, there are going to be so many people who identify as either male or female that unless we all get involved and decide not to "other" our nonbinary friends, nothing's going to change for them.

2018 venture vermont: create your own outdoor scavenger hunt

often i do not have the audience for whom to create a scavenger hunt.

but this summer since i was working at the Scout Camp, when we needed one for a friday all-camp activity,  i was ALL OVER that puppy.

the challenge was making it hard enough to be fun, but easy enough so that the littlest of our girls could succeed. philosophically, Girl Scouts are more about discovery and cooperation than we are about competition against each other, so our goal was to have every group be able to complete the hunt.

here's my scoresheet:

Scavenger Hunt

Basic (everybody)

Something rough

Two brown things

Something squishy

Something that crinkles

A pine cone

A toothed leaf

A round rock

Two different kinds of leaves

A white flower

Birch bark (found on the ground!)

Three pieces of litter

A piece of tinder

Somebody left handed

Two people born in the same month

Somebody who has been a counselor at a different camp

Somebody who can make a stop cut

Everyone on your team standing on one foot at the same time

Advanced (older girls)

Two different kinds of pine cone

A stick with beetle markings

A compound leaf

Two plants that are edible

A feather

An orange flower

Somebody who has fired a cannon

Somebody who has been to europe

A gold award scout

Somebody who can make a V cut

Everyone on your team jumps off the ground at the same time.

2018 venture vermont: go kayaking on a lake or pond

here's me kayaking on lake champlain:

i paddled from the sandbar fishing access to the bike ferry and down to the railroad bridge and back. 12 miles.

this is me on waterbury reservoir:

because i have been out in the sun every day at this point, protecting myself from sunburn requires hat, gloves, and a bandana OVER MY FACE even though i'm just going out for ice.

makes me look BAD, though.

little dudes

yesterday i showed you the hiking stick i made for badPanda.

here are some little dudes i carved as practice faces.

the fun thing about this is that i carved them on sticks and left them hiding in trees all around a campsite on the res.

2018 venture vermont: whittle a cooking or hiking stick

last year "decorate your own hiking stick" was on the challenge and that's when i took up carving hiking sticks.

recently my friend TheBadPanda aksed for a hiking stick, so i carved one for him.

this is the face part.

2018 venture vermont: do two hours of volunteering

i'll see your two hours and raise you.

ok, so i have a girl scout troop. that puts me over two hours on a monthly basis. but then i volunteered to go to camp farnsworth to help instruct skills week, so add a lot of hours on top of that.

and then i left there to go directly to my scout troop's end-of-year camping trip (our first two night trip ever!) and then i had to go out onto the res to hold a site for a camp trip.

when i got home from that, i went up to the local girl scout day camp to have a meeting with the assistant director of outdoor program to debrief the trip and somehow accidentally stayed to work as a volunteer for the ENTIRE FOUR WEEKS camp was in session.

there are no photos of me doing any of that (because policy), but i can supply a reference from the girl scouts of the green and white mountains upon request.

things nobody needs

check out this interview. go ahead, i'll wait.

they actually make it sound like this "dumb watch" is a device that will make your life better.

what does it do, you ask? well, it sits on your wrist and reminds you not to look at your phone so much.

it does not even tell time.

and these two men talk about the dumbwatch as if $275 is a reasonable amount of money to spend for a bracelet that reminds you not to check your phone so much, because of course people with money to burn don't understand how to turn their phones off or put them away for a while.

it's not that hard, people. you just, uh, don't look at your phone.

i swear, it works.

2018 venture vermont: sign up for inaturalist and use it to find five species new to you

last year they had us sign up for a thing that was way less useful. i mean it was pretty, but it was more like suggestions of places to go rather than a comprehensive usable trove of information you might be looking for.

but i digress.

this year i am all over this new thing, inaturalist.

i am all over this thing. not only can you use it to identify species new to you, but you can use it for citizen science reporting and you can use it to help other people learn species you know.

i am experimenting with using it to create a field guide.

it also manages your lists.

i am learning so much.

and getting that "research-grade" banner on one of your observations is like crack. i spend hours there.

i am way over five species new to me, but here are some of my favorites:

northern rough winged swallow
wild sarsaparilla
acanthocephala terminalis
stream bluet
black swallowtail

seriously. i'd never seen a black swallowtail before.

range

so since i was accidentally working at the girl scout day camp, i thought it would be cool to become certified as an archery instructor.

a level one archery instructor doesn't have to be a pro archer; they just have to know how to set up a range, give the safety commands, and teach beginning archers how to hold a bow, load an arrow, and fire.

i feel i should actually take range practice so i can become a competent archer, so yesterday since i was in the neighborhood i stopped by the range and shot seventy arrows or so.

i only thwanged my arm with the bowstring once this time, which is an improvement, and also i remembered to SHUT MY DOMINANT EYE before shooting, which improves my aim a lot.

ordinarily one wold not shut one's dominant eye, but i am right handed and left eye dominant, so there was an issue with aiming. i was progressing, but slowly.

then i decided to try closing my dominant eye, and THWACK. arrow after arrow goes into the target, if not the bullseye.

that is a very satisfying sound.

i shot until my aim started falling off due to fatigue and then cleaned up the range and went home.

camp is over. i'm going camping.

holy honk, that was an intense four weeks.

today i sept until nine, rolled out of bed and spent a while finding clothes to wear.

i am going to need to play  the let's-pretend-an-adult-lives-here game and maybe pick up after myself, becuase even just picking up my own trash would be a big improvement.

pretty much for four weeks i have been waking up, throwing on clothes, coming home, showering, and getting into bed.

dirty laundry? on the floor where i took it off.
dirty dishes? on a flat surface near where i ate the food.
trash? wherever it happens to be.

time to clean up.

volunteers

today i traded on my enormous popularity at camp and went and asked for a small detail of volunteers to CLEAN THE OUTHOUSE.

they were all like "ME! ME!!!"

so i took four of them and taught them how to use a broom properly. i taught them how to scrub a sink.

the actual toilet cleaning part had to be done by me because according to policy, only adults may clean toilets (because pathogens and imperfect handwashing in children?) and for some reason they wanted to watch me clean the toilets.

"what do you do to do that?" they asked.
"you can come see.  it's not a secret."

and so a small group of tourists followed me from stall to stall.

and then when we got back to main camp girls were coming up to me asking if i will let them be on outhouse detail tomorrow.

HIGH-larious.

the sensible explanation is that i have no actual supervisory duties. i don't have to line them up or get them from place to place. i just come and instruct all the fun things. and often i am taking a small group and teaching them something new, or just in general paying attention on a small scale to them.

my theory here is that no matter the chore, it is individual attention and personalized instruction and they like that.

plus they got to come to flag circle at the end of day and report that they cleaned the outhouse and they VOLUNTEERED, so they got to take pride in being good citizens.

tea paty

i don't have any pictures (because policy) but this is what i did yesterday:

i took six small parties of girls (a half dozen in each, maybe?) to the various habitats on the camp property and we gathered all manner of edible leaves and twigs and berries.

we looked at animal sign. we talked about foraging guidelines.we learned how to crush up plantain, mullein and jewleweed and use the juice to ease bug bite discomfort.

we sorted out our leaves and berries and with help from one girl who was quick to volunteer, i set up a camp stove to boil water.

i poured tea. the counselors helped the girls make little finger sandwiches with gathered leaves on brown bread with cream cheese. popular sandwich fixin': mustard greens.

after the tea was poured, i cut up and fried some milkweed pods, which blew some girls' minds.

and now i am tired.

i wish the campers knew

that i will learn that they do not like cucumber and that their mom does not know this way before i learn their names.

that when i ask them if they have ever done a skill, there's no shame in saying "no". it just tells me to start instruction at the beginning.

that in discussions about behavior, i have more respect for an admission of a behavior that may need changing than i do for wide eyed passivity.

this happened.

i came home from camping with the girl scouts from the resident camp and came home to unpack and unwind and then i had a meeting monday with a nice lady from the council and now suddenly it appears i am in charge of things over at the day camp, like instruction with cutting tools (mostly knife instruction) and flag ceremonies.

because teaching little children proper flag etiquette takes TIME and the actual counselors are busy with supervisory duties.

when you are working with very young children you are faced with having to seriously discuss that the color guard does not wear cat masks and may not carry that special stick and pinecone combination no matter how much they love the stick and pinecone.

yes, the color guard includes that little girl wearing a sparkly princess dress.

but by golly, she can fold a flag.

gear review: anker powerport solar lite

first up: i do not receive products from manufacturers nor any other compensation for my reviews.

ok, so last december my stepmother got me one of these things as a gift. i've seen a solar charger or two, but those mostly only worked as a trickle charger you had to charge up in an outlet anyway.

i am heavy on device use when camping: i like to keep abreast of the weather forecast (because even though i can read the weather pretty well, modern forecasting gives you much more detailed information that can really help you plan your day with regard to safety and shelter.)

and i love apps that help me identify plants and critters, and apps that help me report on biodiversity. i'm a big fan of citizen science and it turns out that biologists are making great use of apps like ebird and inaturalist to gather information about species range, which changes too fast these days for printed guides to keep up with.

you used to have to be a bona fide scientist to do this science, but now anybody who can use a field guide and has a phone can help do real science, which is cool.

and i am now off topic, which will not surprise you if you have ever read anything by me.

so anyway, i am a heavy device user. my phone seriously cuts down on the number of actual books i have to carry with me while camping. so i need to keep it charged.

i have some very fine battery packs, but they have their limitations and they do run out.

enter the powerport solar lite. i used mine for the first time this week, on days when there was strong sun for only part of the day. i was able to get full charges on two devices, which goes a long way.

i'm very pleased with it. it has a sturdy, durable feel, and you can leave it out or even tie it to your pack (tiedown loops provided).

and it just works.

2018 venture vermont: take a swimming lesson

i thought i wasn't going to get this one, because i know how to swim.

but recently (you know this unless you just walked in) i took lifeguard training, and i think that counts as a swim lesson.

i learned to swim to a distressed swimmer for rescue. i learned how to swim while towing another person. i learned how to escape a distressed swimmer who tries to grab onto you.

i think that all counts as a swimming lesson.

there are no pictures of it, but i can furnish my brand new shiny lifeguard card upon request.

tab time

my browser is clogged with things i saw and want to share with you.

the world is terrible:

bullied students told to stop being part of the problem, as if they do not already wish to be involved in this problem.

it sucks that we even need this.

and rape jokes, are still a thing, but for the time being you can watch cameron esposito's show of that name for free. you should totally do it. i promise you will not regret it.

but also the world is amazing:

there have always been awesome people. read about one woman here.

and there's this. (full disclosure: the wrier of that post is a friend of mine)

and besides libraries, there's architecture.



and candy.




and music.


isn't that lovely?