First Week

Well our first week of training has come to an end. It was a very eventful week, full of information. I have acquired many new skills this week.

The first one being my ability to identify certain trees and animals in the forest. The trees and plants are much different here in Massachusetts. I can identify: white pine, eastern hemlock, white birch, grey birch, yellow birch, american beach tree, wintergreen, sassafras, and partridge berry.

I have also learned how to play addle-addle. Which is spear throwing. Its very fun and challenging. Here is a picture to give you a better idea:

You use a wooden bow to throw the spear/arrow.

I can now say that I  have used a fire extinguisher. Part of our training was meeting with our maintenence staff to go over toilet plunging, back injuries, and fire extinguisher use. As completion of the training I had to put out a gasoline fire with an extinguisher.

Finally, I attempted to carve wood this week. We were making bow-drill sets to use with campers. So I was attempting to make the spindle part. (Bow-Drills are to make friction that creates fire.) I was not so successful... Carving things with knives is just not for me. 

This week I also made some awesome new friends. I live in a house with 8 other people. We are all different but get along very well. I do have a roommate, who I get along with fairly well. She is a few years younger than me, but is nice. I think the roommate curse is over. 

There is a man on our staff thats been here for a long time. His name is Ranger, and he is a little bit crazy. He likes to make animal calls. Apparently the staff play a game when kids are here called "Id that ranger or a real animal?"

Another one of my housemates is a summer camp director. She works at a camp called Wind in the Pines. her and I have become good friends, and theres a chance she could get me a job in the summer. I might be helping her out at one of her camp events in October. 

We have a group of 22 kids coming on Monday. They are 7th graders from a Catholic School nearby. I have heard they are very well behaved. i am going to shadow a few of the returners next week to get a better feel of the schedule. I will be teaching my first class on Monday. It's called "Jelly Bellyology". It's about classification and Carl Linnaeus. It should be a lot of fun! 

Finally, here are a few pictures for you viewing pleasure: