As I think you all know, I got back from camp last week. The camp was at a farm called Hidden Villa in the Los Altos Hills near our house. I was in the twelve-day-long Resident Camp, in Cabin Girls. There were four groups: the younger girls, Cabin Girls, the older girls, Vale Girls, the younger boys, Cabin Boys, and the older boys, Bluff Boys. But all the groups did everything together except during down time and of course sleeping.
There were three counselors in each group and two program (or problem) heads. The Cabin Girl counselors were Clover, Shadow and Aussie. Just because you were in a girl group didn't mean you didn't have a boy counselor! Same with the boys. In fact, one of the Cabin Girls' counselors, Aussie, was a guy.
In camp I even knew a couple of people. A girl, Beth, was in my choir two years ago (last year she moved out of Intermediate and up into Ensemble). Also, there was a girl in my cabin named Brindha that was in my tipi in Tipi Camp last year and her friend Natalie. Sadly, Bridha had to go home in the middle of camp because she had a fever, but I had other friends too. Maddie (a.k.a. Maddie-horse) in Vale Girls was nice as well as Stephan in Cabin Boys. (Though everyone else in Cabin Boys said he had a crush on me...)
The food was generally pretty good and the kitchen made sure that the stuff with garlic in it was labeled and there was something else I could eat (yay!), and, much to everyone's dismay (and me rolling my eyes because of them) the kitchen used leftovers. Again, properly labeled.
Every morning and afternoon we'd have a selection of activities to choose from. These ranged from pool to cooking to art to blaring music at the goats while taking them for a walk. My favorite activities were generally the hiking activities. On one hike with the counselor Captain Falcon, we made various animal noises at two other groups, played Telephone (ending up with funny phrases), Falcon saw a rattlesnake, had three people get stung by wasps, and had Falcon fall into a spiky, dead manzinita bush. When I told the counselor Snoop, he said, "Epic."
The other eventful hike was the next day. We were going to do a simple hike but then met up with Tipi Camp, who was going to do a cheesemoose hunt. (A cheesemoose is a rare kind of moose, made out of cheese, who lives only in the hills of Hidden Villa. To catch a cheesemoose, you do a funky walk while simultaneously calling "Muf-fins!") We hiked up THE EXACT SAME TRAIL I HAD DONE THE DAY BEFORE, holding these ridiculous lassos made of twine, and stopped occasionally when the Tipi Camp counselor, Mama Ladle (yes, it's a silly name, especially for a guy---a couple years ago he stole a ladle from the kitchen and at the meetings they'd be like "Where's our ladle?" and he'd have it and didn't tell anyone. I have no idea why 'Mama', though) would stop and say, "Look! Cheesemoose droppings! And we'd all look and there would be a little pile of cheddar or something. I made a friend in Tipi Camp on that hike--- his name was Kirin. Anyway, a little while down the trail, the kid behind me, Brennan, said, "Hey! A rattlesnake!" and everyone froze. Indeed, there was a rattlesnake beside the trail, coiled up and half asleep. Mama Ladle was like, "You three kids up there get farther up the trail," and Kirin, Brennan, and I went way up the trail. As we figured out how to get past the snake, a Tipi camper started crying. Poor kid. Eventually we all got across the trail and started hiking again. We hiked the whole trail without seeing the cheesemoose (phooey) but then saw it as we got back down to the farm. We ran after it. After catching it (and realizing it was Simba, another one of the counselors) we ate cheese and crackers. Yum!
We didn't just have activities all day. We also had chores. There were six chore groups--- the Righteous Rhubarbs, the Groovy Goats, the Kool Koalas, the Jiggy Piggies, the Wiggly Worms, and the Bodacious Bobcats. I was in the Groovy Goats (for some reason I'm always in the dancing/goat group; last year my chore group was the Dancing Goats!). There were six morning chores and six evening chores. The morning chores were Grounds Keeping (sweeping the Hostel area), Tub Scrubbing (cleaning the bathrooms), Trash and Recycling (bringing the Trash and recycling out to the dumpster), Compost (bringing the compost out to the compost heap), Sprinkles and Sparkles (cleaning up the art hut), and Dining Hall (cleaning up the dining hall). The evening chores, a.k.a. Farm Luvin' chores, were Goat Luvin' (milking/feeding the goats), Cow Luvin' (milking/feeding the cow), Orchard Luvin' (feeding the pigs and chickens in the orchard), Garden Luvin' (doing garden chores), CSA Luvin' (weeding/washing lugs/fetching compost), and Styments Luvin' (feeding the pigs and chickens in the fields). Groovy Goats alternated chores the first week and did Trash and Recycling and CSA Luvin' the second week, except Thursday night, which was free pick and I did Styments Luvin'.
The first thing I said to Mom when she picked me up was, "I need chocolate." The only thing even remotely chocolatey was an Oreo on Saturday night. When we got home, Mom proceeded to make a chocolate-chocolate cake.
