Never had me a name They just gave me the number when I was young

Ok, so here I am, finally getting together my long, and probably two part post about my summer camp. It sits up near the mountains, in pretty much the middle of nowhere, which is not a bad thing at all, because the air is sweet, the grass is green, and you have only the best people for company. Though, really, I could only wish they were the best people. But many of them are amazing. My camp is non-competitive, non-sexist, non-racist, etc., and also makes some of the best food around. Almost as good as my father's. The food is delicious, home-made (not frozen and re-heated), and well balanced (which is important to me, being vegetarian). There is always a delicious salad bar on the middle table as well as a vegetarian and vegan option that all the meat eater's only wish they could have. We have had quiches, we have had veggie potstickers, we have had goulash and cornbread, we have had the best grilled cheese and tomato soup ever, we have had goat cheese, arugula, and dried cranberry salad, and other divine dishes.

Just needed to obsess on the food first.

Here is how a normal day's schedule goes--

7:30-wake up

8:30-breakfast

9:00-optionals(I'll explain below)

10:15-freetime

11:00-optionals

12:20-lunch

1:15-rest hour

and so on until

5:20 time (another sort of rest hour)

6:20-dinner

evening program

circle

(for us) 10:30 sleep

now, let me explain. An optional is what it sounds like. Your options for the period. The camp gathers around and each counselor presents what they're going to do that period, and you choose which one you want to do and go. For example-making sculpey cakes at arts&crafts, feeding the animals at farm&nature, playing ultimate frisbee, going to the barn and listening to each-other's music, etc.

The A-frame where we met for optionals.

The camp believes we shouldn't just be on a schedule to here then there then elsewhere, but that we should choose what we want to do, when we want to do it, with whomever we want to do it with. Awesome, right? Rest Hour and 5:20 time are times where you go to your bunk to relax, nap, read, write letters, etc. During rest hour you get any mail for the day and are allowed to go down to make a weekly phone call. We are not allowed any cell-phones, computers, game systems, or even videos on ipods or video cameras. Which is all right to me, as long as I get to listen to my music and take my pictures. And evening program is after dinner, when the whole camp gathers to do something together, as in a camp-wide game of tag, watching a play in the theater from a traveling acting troupe, etc. And circle time is when the bunk sits in a circle with cookies and milk every night, and talks about a topic, answering in a circle, as in if you could rule the world with one other person, who would it be?, or, your happiest moment ever. And then we do Moment of the Day, where we each share our personal highlight of the day. After that, it's quiet reading, dancing, playing cards etc. until bedtime, and there's our day! Ok, re-reading this, it seems as though I'm getting a little over-excited over something as mundane as the schedule. But seriously, this camp is amazing!

We have animals. I'm really into animals since I have no time, money, room for them at home, as well as my father being allergic to anything that sheds. My favorite pets in the whole world are bunnies. I love them for being soft, and quiet, and vegetarian, and clean, and small, and comforting. We had three bunnies this year. We named them after Beatles lyrics -Sadie(sexy sadie), Lucy (in the sky with diamonds), and Penny(penny lane).

Sadie the Bunny with Lucy in the back

Then we had four turkeys, and sticking with the music theme, we called them the Jackson Four--Thriller, Billie Jean, Mira (fem. ver. of man in the mirror), and Jackie. They all looked the same, so we used their names interchangeably. They laid maybe 3 or so eggs a week, between them. Large, speckled beauties.

One of the Jackson four turkeys

And then we had 3 sheep, whom I named after Jimi Hendrix and his songs--Izabella, Jimi, and Isis (and yes, I do know isis is actually a bob dylan song, but I love it a lot and couldn't think of anything else.) We also had two sheep, pre-named Malia and Sweet Pea. And then the garden we had, the other half to farm and nature. It had peas, lettuce greens we used in the salad every night, potatoes, and a couple of other things just coming in when I left. We had horses and ponies, too, and one dog that came with a counselor and one cat who was pretty much our disapproving, fat mascot--Ratcat. When ever he walked, his belly swung back and forth. So we've got the animals accounted for.

Malia the Goat

We also had water, lots of it, which is also very important to me. We had a pond with goldfish and tadpoles, we had a solar power heated pool, we had a lake that farted, and we had a long running river with beautiful slippery rocks throughout. I went in the water all the time. So we have animals, and water. Lets get tot he music, shall we? We all know I love music, and this camp had tons of it, mostly old hippie tunes from the sixties and seventies, and even some eighties songs. We sung a lot of Beatles, the Police, Johnny Cash, and the Grateful Dead. My favorite thing was to play ultimate frisbee in the rain to the Grateful Dead. Wet Ultime is one of the finer joys in life. To look outside with the whole camp and say,"hey, it's raining. Who wants to play wet ultimate?" And then running outside and getting soaked and chasing eachother up and down the field and almost losing grip on the frisbee when we finally grab it. Now that is an experience. I played a lot of Ultimate at camp, but not many

other sports. I did spend a lot of time in Woodshop, making a wooden rabbit (what else?), and at arts and crafts making beads and other things, and at outdoor living doing hemp and macrame bracelets, and other camp stuff like that. Some of the funniest things happened there, but I don't think they would be funny unless you were there.

One cool thing though--I brought a swiss army knife, and for the first half of camp thought myself ridiculous because I used it for absolutely nothing. But then our bunk went out to spend a night in the woods and we got packed for nine girls, not eleven, so I used my handy dandy skills to shave some sticks into chopsticks and guess what???? They got used! For real! I was useful! It made me so proud and happy like a little kid but it was the coolest thing ever to a city girl like me, believe me!

The cabin where I spent 4 weeks with 27 girls.

Ok, seeing as how much I've written and how much I'm missing camp now, I'm just going to end it for now. Any questions about my wondrous spectacular camp? Write them in the comments.

Love, Lola

Title Quote: Thirteen, Johnny Cash