Wild Life

In April I found found myself in the wilderness with a bunch of 12 and 13 year old boys. OK, it wasn't exactly wilderness. It was my neighbor's ranch where we take the scouts on an over-night campout each year to do some work/service around the ranch ("... it builds character"). This time. like all of the others, the boys personalities came shining through.

We had a late supper where most of the boys cooked up tinfoil dinners in the fire. After messing around with the 5 year old marshmallows and cookies the boys proceeded to put beef jerky on sticks and roast it over the fire. I thought that this was nuts, but I have to admit that it tasted pretty good. Of course, Justin the eternal stomach had to go around and taste everyones food before finally settling down and burning the heck out of his JiffyPop popcorn. In the morning he found a can brown stuff and a dirty stick on the ground and proceeded to eat goop out of the can. This freaked me out a little bit.

After breakfast we worked the rest of the day gathering trees and branches into great big piles that we never got to set on fire (like years past). We also had to dig out and haul huge rocks from a field and around the pond. Every rock that Jackson touched seemed to grow to an enormous size under the ground. Ricky seems to have a one track mind; everything was about how we could organize another activity with the girl's organization, the Beehives. Jeff worked well for such a tiny guy, but from the very beginning he never stopped asking when we could be done. And well ... Antonio's junk was everywhere.

It was a good campout where nobody got hurt and my hernia got a good workout. I don't really like being a scout leader, but the boys certainly keep it interesting if not entertaining.