Now That's a Summer Camp!

My son started summer camp today. Great place: pool, fishing pond, basketball court, football field, obstacle course in the woods. By Wednesday or Thursday of a given week he's exhausted.

This is a much different -- although a lot more intense, you might say -- type of summer camp:

After Mr. Shaw’s demonstration, Chris Wayne, 25, who works for Greenmarket developing new farmers, was the first to take chicken in hand. Wearing a rubber gown, he placed a chicken in an inverted metal cone on the wall, pausing a moment when its head did not drop through the bottom. Prodded by Mr. Shaw, Mr. Wayne reached inside to pull the head through, and then lifted the knife. His cut was deep, his hands steady.

Personally, for somebody who spouts his mouth (and fingers) off about the importance of local food, sustainability, etc., I've done little to get more hands-on experience with it. Most of my support has come with words and dollars. Would really like to improve on that at some point, especially if I could be involved in something like this.

Last weekend, 16 campers, most of them employees of New York City’s Greenmarket program, arrived at Flying Pigs Farm in Shushan, N.Y., during a rainstorm, and soon were gathering eggs and scouring a chicken coop and surrounding field for broken shells. As the campers worked, Ms. Small spotted a hen whose beak dripped with yolk. She explained that once a chicken tastes a yolk it will start cracking every egg it finds.

“You can never cure a chicken of being an egg eater,” she said, separating the chicken from the group. “Sorry, my dear.” 

Good to see these folks, at least, putting their hands where they put their time and money.