Schools, raking and residentials

Good evening

Phew, been busy for the last couple of days, so sorry I've not been updating the posts. Okay, here's the low-down for the last couple of days.

• Tuesday 30th July 2009

Quite a busy day, starting with the daily duties and then leading one of the three primary school groups in "Treasure Island" activity. This was the first time I'd lead this activity, so I was a little apprehensive, but I shouldn't have worried as the group I looked after was great. They were really well behaved and appeared to have lots of fun!
One of the tasks they needed to think about was how they would go about catching rabbits to eat, if they became marooned on the island. They came up with the idea of using their jumper to throw over the rabbits and were determined to catch one, which they nearly did! When I asked them what they would have done if they did catch one, they said that they wouldn't eat it, they would take a picture of it and then let it go. They thought the rabbits were too cute to eat! They would have to make do with the blackberries instead and try and catch some fish!
After the school groups had departed, the sheep needed to be watered. We didn't tip water over the sheep, we just topped up the water trough, so they didn't get too thirsty in the hot weather. The next task for myself, Peter and Erin (both on Work Experience) involved us raking up some nettle cuttings at the Fog Horn and the top of the jetty steps, which had been cut the previous day and then taking them to the grass pile. There always turns out to be more vegetation than you think there is. Very strange. The last task of the day was cleaning out the chickens and making sure they had enough water.

• Wednesday 1st July 2009

Another busy day. There was to be a three-hour trip, as well as another primary school residential, coming onto the island for the night. Alex, who usually looks after the school groups, had to help out on the boat. So, I was put in charge of running the activities she had arranged for them. The kids were brilliant! Firstly I gave them a tour of the island and took them through the gull colony up to the Light House Common to look for creepy-crawlies. They really enjoyed looking for bugs and found lots of different kinds including snails, woodlice, spiders and they even discovered some slow worms!
After the bug hunt, the next task was to design and build model rafts, that they could use to escape from the island, if they got marooned. They worked in pairs and collected twigs from West Beach. There were lots of different designs, which all floated and were able to support added weigh in the form of a stone! Good builders!
We finished off the evening with a campfire and a run around in paddock one. However, this didn't seem to tire the kids out, as they were awake till 3 a.m! The poor teachers and Matt didn't get much sleep!

• Thursday 2nd July 2009

I was in charge of the residential group again today and the kids were still full of beans even though they hadn't had much sleep the night before! The task for the morning, before an early lunch and tidy up was "Nest Building". We went into the gull colony to find some examples of nests and listen to the sounds the gulls make. Then the kids went into paddock one, paired up into "mummy" and "daddy" gulls and collected materials from around the field to make their nests. They weren't allowed to talk, so had to communicate making noises that they had heard the gulls make, using their hands as beaks to pick up nest materials. They made very good nests and were very convincing as gulls! After they had lunch, the Farm House was cleaned. It was a case of packing and meeting the boat to go back to the mainland.
As it had been a busy morning for myself and Erin (Peter had left with the residential), Matt gave us the task of weeding the Wild Peony, while he, Jo and Simon looked after the three-hour visitors. There was a lot of vegetation to clear, but it looks a lot better now and hopefully we can plant some more seedlings, when the seed pods develop later this year!

Well, after the busy last couple of days, I think I'll be getting some well earned sleep! Night, night ... Standing By