Thursday!

Today started with our daily "jobs" where the campers get to help feed the feral cats and fill peanut butter dogs Kongs. In addition, campers have taken strong liking to our puzzles, and hanging out with Carmen the box turtle.

We played a few rounds of home made, animal themed, heads up before heading off for snack. During snack, we had a few surprise guests - daddy long legs and a few spiders! We learned all about these fascinating little creatures. We learned that daddy long legs are not actually a type spider, why spiders curl up in a ball when they die (fun fact: they only have flexor muscles, pulling their legs into their body, not extender muscles. Instead they use hydraulics, pushing water into their legs to extend them. When they pass away, their hydraulics system fails and their flexor muscles pull their legs into their bodies). We also learned about why you should never pick daddy long legs up - they will drop their legs to try to escape and with each leg they lose, it becomes harder to survive in the wild.

After snack, we went into the classroom to meet our guest speaker, Garrett Levin. He is a vet at BEVS and taught us all about animal safety and first aid. He showed us numerous pictures of X-rays he's seen during his practice then gave the campers opportunities to practice wrapping "wounded animals". In four groups, campers received stuffed animals and were asked to give them names, a story of how they got hurt, and hd a chance to wrap and address those"wounds". The campers LOVED it!

We went back outside and made our way to the pet cemetery at the Humane Society. Campers completed a scavenger hunt, exploring some of the interesting and funny gravestones in the yard. Campers had a blast looking at some of the funny names and learning a little bit about their life and stories. It was exciting to pay those respects to some amazing animals and pets.

The end of camp involved feeding Carmen some yummy leaves and flowers and several games including more heads up, duck duck goose, and down by the banks!