Scouting

As many of you know, for the past eight years I’ve been a Girl Scout leader. I’ve only talked about the troop intermittently here, because I realized early on that even when small the girls were entitled to privacy about the details of their day to day lives. But Scouting has been a huge part of my life. One day, I’ll manage to put into coherent form all I’ve learned as a leader–at least as much as the girls have, perhaps because they’ve taught me things every step of the way.

But right now I’m posting because last weekend was our final field trip, an overnight spent at the Y horse camp north of town. Everyone was assigned a horse the first day, and we then groomed and saddled our horses before each ride–two trail rides and a lesson in the ring. Fun, tiring, energizing–the folks at the Y were great. And seeing the girls together one more time before their lives spin off into exciting and varied directions–the directions that are are the reasons most of them are leaving Scouting–was fabulous.

Those lives are going to be amazing. You’ll probably know all these girls eventually, even though I’ve never named them here, because one way or another, every one of them is going to change the world.

(As for the Peeps, the wood was damp enough that we built perhaps the worlds tiniest campfire–and worked for it, let me tell you!–but we did get just enough flame to roast marshmallows. The Peeps turned a lovely carmelized brown on the outside–maybe not as tasty as one might have hoped, but not bad. Not bad at all. And as junoxxiv says, you have to roast marshmallows over the campfire you have, not the campfire you want.)