Greetings Blog Readers!
Yet again sorry for the delay in posting. I think this might mean it is time for me to shed my commitment about always posting on Sunday evenings. I wanted to wait until we had all our new Flying Cloud names to make the post, which meant I wasn’t able to get back to my computer until now.
Let’s jump right in- our August Session is off to a spectacular start. We brought in two new counselors and 17 new campers (we had 21 campers stay for the full summer!) Almost half of our community is new to Flying Cloud, so we’ve been really getting into the vibe of orientation. There is always an interesting shift to close out the July Session community and then immediately jump into forming a new community only days later. This year, the full season campers have been particularly great and welcoming and integrating the new Flying Clouders. We went through much of the same orientation we did at the beginning of the summer (how to build safe fires, use blades properly, how to do chores, etc.), but this time we had our full season campers taking on more leadership roles. Along with helping the new campers learn how to live at Flying Cloud, many of them have really been stepping up and are even teaching activities like leather pouch making and stone arrow crafting. This is truly an expression of the cyclical model of ‘student becomes teacher’; only we also learn from those we teach as well!
If you’ve been following the blog, you know that a list of new names should be in here somewhere if we just had a naming. You’re absolutely right. So please join me in welcoming and recognizing nine of our brothers with their new Flying Cloud names (if you don’t know much about Flying Cloud names, take a look back to this post from earlier in the summer: http://www.farmandwilderness.org/fcblog/2011/07/10/well-under-way/).
Weaving Forest
Sky Otter’s Embrace
Osprey Dive
Heron Spring
Questing Crow
Yearling’s Bliss
Summer Dog
Constellation Gives
Watching Mountain Brings
I am so proud of all these young men for the journey they have traveled to reach their new names. While it takes a little while for the weight of a name to settle, I know with so much certainty that these names will settle well on the shoulders of these Flying Clouders.
Nine new names given, and we jump right into trips! Today the whole was split into the groups they will be with for the next four days and three nights for their overnight trips. During this half of the summer, we have a pretty incredible line up of options for the boys. In the hiking department,we have an expedition leaving right out of camp and hiking some of the biggest peaks in our area called S.K.i.P. Trip (Shrewsbury, Killington, an “i” for the sake of making a word, Pico). Our other hiking trip currently is to the Breadloaf Wilderness Area, which is a couple hours north of us in the Green Mountains. For those interested in a little time on the water we our offering a Raquette River Canoe trip in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. Beyond hiking and canoeing we have two other trips as well. First, we have our standard Wilderness Survival Trip. We take the campers and staff trip leaders for this trip to a hidden location where they can practice all their different survival skills from debris shelter building to friction fire to wild edibles collection. Then, (drumroll please), we have our capstone trip experience for the older campers which we call Uber Scout! This is a trip designed around testing our abilities of camouflage and silent movement. This trip is a pretty epic adventure that the campers always walk away from proud to have been a part of.
So, first thing tomorrow morning, we will see all the trip groups off. They will return to us on Saturday evening just in time for the last week of camp. The summer comes and goes so fast, but there is still so much that will happen in the next week and a half.
If you haven’t thought about it yet, I suggest you consider coming to join us for the Farm & Wilderness Fair on August 13th. All of the F&W camps are involved in a great time and we love to have as many guests as we can find! You can find out more at http://www.farmandwilderness.org/events-and-retreats/alumni-bbq.
Hope to see y’all there and if not please don’t hesitate to contact me at Zach@farmandwilderness.org with any questions, concerns, hopes, or joys you might have!
Be well,
~FF~