Today I'm thinking about everything good. I've found many of my old camp friends/counselors and am reminded of how wonderful those summers were and all the new things I experienced. I decided to go to camp at age 7. My brother was going, and dammit, I was going too. (Sassy from the get go). It was a farm camp in southern Vermont that had every critter that should be on a farm and it's own pond and garden and open fields and cabins and a huge gray barn and outhouses! It was magical. It was nothing like anything I had ever done before. I spent six weeks barefoot, unless I was in the barn. My hair was long and wild, my skin sun-kissed and golden. There were many firsts - rode a pony, collected fresh eggs, milked a cow, fed pigs, hiked, camped out, and picked the sweetest, earthiest wild blueberries and raspberries in the world. Holy cow. My senses were on overload and I loved every single seven-year-old second.
Let's discuss the heavenly tastes and smells that came from this summer - fresh milk, fresh eggs, fresh produce, those wild berries, and those horses. Some of these joys have stuck with me and some I will always dream of. 19 years later, I'm still riding horses. I've had my own chunky pony, Schuyler, for 14 years (pictured above) and aside from cooking, he's my greatest love and distraction. Most people find a barn's aroma to be harsh, smelly, and disgusting. I smell home. If a smile and a hug could be a scent, it would be horse fur, hay and well worn leather. Either that or freshly baked bread from Lauryn's kitchen. Or Grandma's peach pie. Or Mom's beef stew. I digress.
I spent every spare moment in that big gray barn, playing in bales of hay, grooming horses, cleaning tack. I was hooked. I'm sure there were others in prior summers, but this summer I was given the task of milking, brushing, feeding and snuggling Butterscotch the cow. 5am, every morning. I was up before the chickens. Let me tell you...nothing is as good as fresh milk. Literally, right from the cow. We hauled the pails into the kitchen and stuck them in the pasteurizer then poured the milk into huge recycled industrial mayo jars. (Anyone remember poor Bob and the Sysco truck we chalked?!) Fresh milk (non-homogenized) does this miraculous thing that grocery stores never share with us. The cream rises to the top when it's left in the fridge undisturbed. Thick, delicious, heavenly nectar of the cow gods. I dream of this natural wonder. I didn't drink coffee then, so I would scoop some of this out and put it in hot chocolate in those funny little blue enameled metal camp mugs.
Fantastic things happened when I was up that early - I sat in the kitchen with the cool counselors, smelled breakfast being prepared, scooped out fresh cream, fed all the critters and was the first camper to run through the dew-soaked grass every morning. Sometimes I even got to ring the wake-up bell and deafen myself at the same time. Awesome. Once breakfast was had, we did our chores (first time I scrubbed a bathroom, too) and had our first round of activities. So much to do!!! Tie-dye, pottery, riding, gardening, nature hikes, drawing, oh my goodness. Lunch. Afternoon activities ensued. Then dinner was either had at the brightly painted picnic tables under the shade of the huge pine tree or inside the main room if it was rainy, or up at the lean-to's which then led to back massage circles, singing, s'mores making, and trying to find the beaver family that lived in the dam up there. Only one unfortunate experience - Shadow, a gorgeous German Shepard and one of the camp staples, went swimming and decided my sleeping bag was the place to be. Soaking wet dog and soggy sleeping bag equaled a very cold and shivery me. Margaret came to the rescue and gave me her sleeping bag. C.I.T. (counselor in training) Chicken night was the only meat-eating night, every Friday. Not gourmet by any means, but there was something so satisfying about biting into a charred, kinda burnt, bbq sauce slathered chicken leg.
One of my activities was to hang out in the garden, weeding and thinning, raking, etc. I was dubbed Queen of the Garden and I believe there was a song that went with it. This particular day, Jim was in charge of the activity. We picked fresh rhubarb and various other sun-ripened delectables. He said he had a surprise project for us. We brought our baskets and buckets of summer abundance to the kitchen and we made a strawberry rhubarb crumble pie thing that we all promised to keep secret. Sugar and sweets were not part of our menu at camp. I was never upset about this because I got to taste the real sweetness of things - berries, peaches, tomatoes, corn. There were maybe 8 kids involved with this project. That night, after all had gone to bed, Jim woke the 8 of us up, giant tray o' pie in hand, and took us to Nina's back porch to devour the fruits of our labor. He said "this tastes so good because we made the effort." He was right. Nothing beats the satisfaction of succeeding at something - everything that comes out of my kitchen tastes better than any store bought anything because I made the effort and created culinary beauty out of raw ingredients. Lots of lessons about doing things for yourself rather than solely depending on others came from camp. And it all made sense, somehow.
I could easily go on for days about these summers. Such vivid memories of happiness, freedom, and laughter. I wish I could go back.
