This weekend Austin went on a scouting trip. He was recently promoted to First Class Scout. He, along with a handful of other high ranked scouts, hiked over 15 miles on the Appalachian trail. 15 MILES!!!! His pack weighed a mere 23 lbs, and he was responsible for all his water, tent,sleeping gear and FOOD. Way to go, guys!
The funniest story that I heard from the trip: (As told to me by the Assist. Scoutmaster, because Austin never tells me anything)
Late one night, up in the mountains, the boys had pitched their tents, eaten dinner, and were about to turn in for the night. It was getting cold. The fire was going down. And then........... A sound! Just 2 scouts and one assist. scout master were up.
An Assist. Scout Master: (lowering his voice) "Oh My gosh! Did you hear THAT??"
Scouts: (in hushed tones) "Uh-huh."
Assist. Scout Master: (still quiet) "There it goes again! That's a coyote!"
Scouts: (silent)
Assist. Scout Master: "That's a Coyote.....Do you here it?"
Austin: " Mr. Woods?"
Asst. Scout Master: "Yeah."
Austin: "Sir........That's an owl."
Assist. Scout Master: "Oh. .................Really?? An owl can sound like THAT???"
Scouts do not laugh until far away, tucked into their tents.
Poor guy. He's great, though. As a matter of fact only a few of the assistant Scout Master-dads know ANYTHING about the outdoors at all. But the difference is that they love being with the boys and learning along side of them. ANd they definitely contribute in MAJOR ways when it comes to the NON-outdoorsy stuff!
In case you didn't know, a large part of the population in VA is terrified about coyotes these days. It's the "in" thing to do. (shrugging shoulders) I really don't get it. I mean with all the hype, you'd think that the coyotes were taking over our cities and giant packs were roaming through the streets.
Any of you Mid-westerners want to weigh in on the "coyote" subject??? It seems like a lot of misinformation to me. Whatcha know about coyotes???
4 comments:
All I know about coyotes is the story I related back when. We have them but we live too far in the 'burbs to see them. However, we also have armadillos, and they fascinate me. Our neighbor caught one, but we haven't come that close.
I know you are so proud of Austin. He's a great kid!!!
FUNNY!!!!
VA is "re-introducing" the coyote back to the commonwealth. Funny b/c they spent sooo much time and energy years ago trying to get rid of them all.
Ah yes, that is the wonderful logic you get when gov't gets involved with nature.
Give it 10 years or so and they will start introducing the Gray Wolf to our area in order to thin the coyote population. ROFL!!
ROFL!!! We have some coyotes here in OK. They're so tiny it's hard to be "terrified" of them. ;-)
Great story and my oldest never tells me anything either, until about a year after the fact.
We're in the 'burbs, but we live right next to a nature preserve. We're in it as soon as we walk out of our backyard. :) Since our yard is not fenced, we have some coyotes that use our yard as their entryway into the neighborhood. We've seen them very close up now, just beside our deck even, and the boys love watching them. Well, we all do, though Ernie acknowledges that he may not be quite so happy to see them when we have goats and chickens. ;)
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