Graduation Day

Today was the final day of our week of survival camp.  We started with a trip through the animal compound, where we have live deer, panthers, bear, skunk, bobcat, and more.  They loved the aviary and our collection on Raptors (Birds of Prey, not Velociraptors).  One of my students said "Barrd Owls are cool, unless they are eating my chickens!"  Nice to have a young lady in class who has her own coop at home. That is very rare indeed.  The students loved checking out our new display of life sized wing spans;

We checked out some skulls, both real and plastic.  Not a one said "eeww".   They were fascinated with the real ones. 

In camp we built fires and had a competition to see who could burn the string first. Kelly had done such a nice job of teaching them the lean-to, cabin, and teepee style, as well as how to properly light a match, that every team was able to get a fire with one match and feed it well enough to burn the string, some faster than others.

While we waited for the fires to become good cooking fires, we wove mats out of saw palmetto for placemats and coasters.

The hot dogs were delicious, but these kids, used to microwaves, had a tough time waiting for their hot dogs to finish cooking.  Those that did were rewarded with the best tasting meal ever!

While we were having lunch we were invaded by the "Woods and Wildlife" camp that had made Gilly Suits out of burlap bags and snuck up on us. They said they had our campers walking back and forth right next to them, not knowing they were there!  They could have reached out and touched my campers!  It was awesome!  See if you can see 3 of them in this photo;

Our graduation ceremony was complete with watermelon, paper plate awards and  medals to the winning team, "Nature's Havoc."   This is the only team composed completely of strangers at the beginning of the week.  They rocked the competition...maybe because they did not know each other?!

One of my students, halfway through her 2nd slice of watermelon, asked "What do you do with the seeds?"  "You spit them out on the ground" someone said while another demonstrated.  "Oh" she said "I ate them."  Remember the first time you ate watermelon seeds and your parents told you a watermelon was going to grow in your belly?  I did not tell her that tall tale, but maybe I should have!  

Big thanks go out to my daughter, Kelly, who volunteered in camp all week.  Here she is with the award my students made and gave to her "Best Helpful Person";

As a young man said to me this morning, "it's the little things in camp that make the difference", referring to the opportunity to build a swing. He can't wait to attend with his younger brother in two years.  I hope he does. This next and final photographis a leaf that a young lady found.  Thanks for a great week campers!  I loved every minute of it!