My Scout

Vivian is a brownie or whatever little girl scouts are. We aren't great scout parents. Her poor sash doesn't have any badges sewn on to it, though there are several inside her scout bag. But we dig the camping portion. 

A couple of weekends ago I took her and Evan to a unofficial girl scouts camp. We, by choice, don't do a lot of girl scouty things but there was an assembly to kick things off. The Scout Leader's daughter seemed to be the only one that knew what to do during the recital of the promise. Vivian's other friend in the photo seems to be making a rude gesture.

Doesn't Evan look happy? He wanted to stay home with Jo when he found out that his buddy and classmate would not be coming because his sister who is Vivian's classmate and a girl scout cancelled due to a junior PGA tournament that she had to participate in. But Jo was suffering from a serious bout of vertigo and stayed in bed all day and Evan came camping with us. Here you can see us heading off for a short hike and Evan lumping behind all the girls grumbling. A bit later he settled down and had a load of fun.

We discovered animal tracks (I tried to tell the kids that the prints belong to a juvenile crossfit monkey (the prints were about two inches across) that only moved by doing handstand walks (as there were no hind prints in evidence). But other parents thought it would spook the kids and ruined my story. Turns out they are raccoon prints.

We fished and a couple of the other girls caught some perch. My kids found a baby snake nosing it's way through the shallows. Some of the parents standing around suggested that it could be venomous from it's markings, but having grown up in South Asia I knew that already. All snakes are fucking venomous.

Back at the camp we saw a killdeer plover do it's broken wing dance in front of us. A parent identified it as the maneuver it performs to lure danger away from it's nest or young, and sure enough we soon found it's gravel nest with beautiful spotted large eggs. I learned that a killdeer's eggs are bigger than most bird's eggs because their young are precocial - (as in "precocious"), and are born fully developed with feathers and down and eyes that are open and can literally start running along with their parents from the moment the eggs hatch. Most other birds are born sightless and naked and need a couple of weeks before they can do that. The eggs of birds with precocial young are bigger because the little ones spend almost twice as long inside the eggs and hence need the extra nourishment. Chickens and ducks are also precocial.

The kids engaged in some archery. We had a catered fajita dinner grilled right there. Then everyone ate s'mores and Evan was very happy that he had come along. And once the kids went off to sleep and the parents opened some wine by the campfire I was pretty happy that I had come along too.