Mid day Saturday we all left the house and headed the 20 or so minutes north to Diamond Lake and Camp Cowles cub country. I drove the boys in my truck and @stryeyz drove herself so she could come back home whenever she wanted. The boys and I stayed the night as our cub master was in charge of the shooting events and had staked out the closest camp site to the ranges.
We got to the camp and checked in then headed right to the camp site to setup before the opening flag raising happened at 2:00pm. We were den 4 on the schedule and our pack was paired with a pack from Chewelah, about a half hour north of our farm. There was a total of 12 kids for all the activities in our den.
I quickly got both the boy's and my tent setup before we headed down to the flag pole.
4 of the 5 boys were at the camp and with it being warm all weekend they had their waters with them at all times. J held the pack flag for the opening.
The first activity was games. I think it was called bogo ball but the kids all got in the pen, a ball was placed in the middle and they all stood against the wood. On go they all tried to hit the ball with their hands and if it hit another kid in the knee or below that kid was out. They had a blast playing four or five rounds.
With the games they got to cup stacking. They had tried it on the grass to no real effect then moved to the table where the table became covered in red solo cups.
Next was swimming which was awesome for them since it was hot with little to no wind blowing. The closer area in the dock got to about 2 feet deep then the next area went from about 3 to 5 feet deep so different ability swimmers had options.
The craft activity was a bit more experiment than craft but they made a type of slime out of elmers glue and liquid starch. After a good amount of mixing the stuff ended up feeling like the old slime we got as toys as kids.
After feeding the boys dinner back at camp we walked the short way up to the bb gun range. J did pretty damned good hitting the paper with 8 or 10 bbs. R did pretty good given he could barely hold the bb gun, but he hit the paper with 5 of 10 bbs.
The experiments activity they built the exploding popsicle stick squares. I had showed J how to make these last year in both the square and triangle form which he showed some of the other kids the triangle version. They all stood on the edge of the hill and threw them to see distance. Afterwards they made flying fish out of strips of paper and threw them to see them flutter around and some go the opposite way they threw it.
After the closing flag lowering we were back at camp when Willy the cub master took his dog down to the lake for a swim to which we all followed. The boys spent more time digging in the sand on the beach than swimming but they still had fun.
While we were at the lake one of the camp leads had gone around the campsites giving out smores fixings but we were not there to get them. luckily I brought a bag of marshmallows with so the 4 boys plowed through them with reckless abandon. Around dark the smores fixings showed up so they had chocolate and graham crackers as well but didn't have a chance to decimate them.
After an okay night of sleep I was awakened by some horrendously awful ravens that sounded like a howler monkey and would not shut the hell up. Stupid bird was making noise the moment light was in the sky before 5 am. Once up the boys managed to get a bit of banana in them before they proceeded to plow through the smores stuff. I was not too pleased by it but figured best not to interject and let them see what would happen.
After a breakfast of sugar we went down for the day's opening flag raising. There was about 100 kids each of the days, maybe less on Sunday than Saturday.
The first activity of the day was experiments where they colored coffee filters with pens and watched the ink separate colors as it bled from a dip in water. Then they watched food color and soap as it interacted in a tray of milk. The soap in milk was kinda cool watching the streams of soap as a stick was trailed through.
Games was next and they all spent most of their time playing bogo ball. R even won one. He was the youngest kid in the group but about the same size as Javi from our pack.
After the games was fishing. I got most of the kids setup with fishing rods, baited, and bobbers on. It was a lot more windy than it was on Saturday so there really wasn't any fish biting.
Mid way through the fishing time the kids saw a turtle in the water below the dock. Since they all had worms on hooks they all went in the water and one of the girls ended up catching the turtle.
She lifted it out of the water and I popped the hook out of it's jaw. Nice sized painted turtle. Not sure if correct but the kids were counting the shell sections on it's top shell, saying it was 13 or 14 years old by the segment count. Looming around now it seems that dividing that by two would be closer to the correct age of 6 to 7 years old. After all the kids got to touch it and pet it I gave it to one of the boys to let go in the water again.
After fishing we went aback to camp to eat lunch. J was starting to not feel to good and didn't end up eating much. It was hot out on the docks but we were in the shade a lot of the time. I had him drinking water a good bit as well. After lunch we went to the tree house area for crafts where they worked on making an electromagnet with wire, nail, tape, and a battery. While there J got up and came to me saying he felt like he was going to puke. We walked up to the bathrooms where I had him try going to poop in case that was his problem but no luck. We walked back to the craft area and were there for a few minutes when he got up again and this time barely made it to the trash can before he puked. After that I got him back to the camp site and into the truck to sit and relax. I went back to get R and then took him back to the camp site.
The last activity was archery and as I looked at R I just knew he was too small to be able to pull the string on the bow and with J sick I figured it was best to head out. We have a kids bow and a bunch of arrows here at the farm that J has been shooting for months so he did not miss anything really.
As we drove out I had just gotten to the pavement when he had to puke once more on the side of the road. He made it home fine after that and as soon as he got in the house he went straight to bed and napped for a couple of hours. He felt much better after the nap and some nutrients in him.
In the end it was the fact that he had only sugar to eat most of the morning. J is like me in that he HAS to have protein in the morning to keep his body going through the day and without it he ended up plowing head first into the wall. It was a VERY big lesson for him and will now hopefully be a solid reminder for him to pay better attention to his body and how he feels.
For Father's day dinner I grilled steaks and corn and we had brussel sprouts cooked in the air fryer.
J spent much of the evening like this on the couch reading his Garfield's Nine Lives book.
Today I have already been to town for grain now have a bunch more work to do in the gardens. Weeds are a constant issue and I have to pick the strawberries while it is cool this morning. It will be getting to over 100F this weekend and will be hot all week so the most important thing is to open the house at night and close it up early to maintain as much cool as possible in the house.
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