The only bugs we see are samples from the wetlands and a solitary June bug that attaches itself to my coat, sending the youngsters near me into squeals of terror and an awed sense of admiration when I flick the large beetle to the ground, feel sorry for it struggling on its back, and turn the armored insect onto its legs again.
We are the only group from our team that gets to climb the tower overlooking the marsh, and I take two different groups to the top. It's not a tall tower, but it has open-air stairs and sways badly as we walk up to the platform, which, as anyone who knows me will testify, is an amazing accomplishment for me as I despise both heights and towers of any kind.
After taking soil samples and catching pond creatures in sieves (and encouraging the kiddos to touch the clay and the mud -- sooooo fun, and I mean that), my group meanders past the bat boxes (another signal for the girls to scream) toward the main area where we will meet the other team of students to eat lunch together. The rain is picking up a little bit and the wind is biting more, but our team of one hundred kids is ready to go back to school.
Except for attempting to bring (and actually bringing) about ten ticks back with us, it's an exceptionally uneventful but successful trip in the teacher realm. In the personal realm, any time I can be out in the woods is an excellent day by my standards, rain or shine.
