Thursday was a fantastic day at Tollgate!
Meet the yellow peppers! 
They love to play with the goats on Mt. Woodchip! 
In the morning, campers practiced casting on the hill.
In the afternoon, campers went to the dock to fish.
This week, campers have been learning about ruminants on our farm. Today, they learned more about cows.
How many parts of the cow’s stomach can your camper name? Can your camper sing the rumen reticulum song?
*Rumen, reticulum, omasum, abomasum*
The campers sorted these items.
Items that go in the cow, come from the cow, or are unrelated.
This group did a relay race to sort items together.
The campers discussed all of the items that come from cows. What items do you use at home that come from cows? 
The pepper groups continued working with their wool today.
The clean wool from yesterday was dipped into water.
Then the camper rubbed the wool in their hands to get the fibers to felt together.
This is the felted wool.
How does the loose wool felt together? Why is it important for wool to stick together when we use it to make clothes?
The peppers continued working on their clay creations today.
This group painted their projects.
This group worked with materials to create habitats for the clay creatures. 
This morning in garden kitchen, campers made spider oat bites!
One camper said “100 thumbs up!” for spider oat bites. They were delicious!
In the afternoon, campers combined ingredients to make humus. 
They ate the humus with peppers and pretzels. Yum!
Here are the recipes!
Spider Oat Bites
1 cup oats
2/3 cup coconut flakes
½ cup nut butter/sunflower seed butter
½ cup ground flaxseed or wheat germ/bran
½ cup chocolate chips or cacao nibs (optional)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Stir all of the ingredients together in a medium bowl until thoroughly mixed. Cover and let chill in the refrigerator for half an hour. Once chilled, roll into balls of whatever sizes you would like. Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to one week. Makes 20-25 balls.
Creamy White Bean Hummus
1 19oz can of Canneli Beans (white beans)
2 peeled garlic cloves (minced)
½ cup of tahini
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp olive oil
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ tsp salt
Put all of the ingredients into a food processor and process for about 30 seconds or until smooth.
These campers showed great attitude cleaning out the chicken water dish today! They chickens were really happy to have clean water in the coup!
“I said a broom chika broom!” The campers practiced camp songs in garden kitchen!
This group sang a song with zombie moose!
This was a great day at camp! Here are additional photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/bN0qd3dpBp390KRt2
Winged Wonders!
Last night, Tollgate campers worked more on nest building and presented their nests. After this, campers dissected bobwhite eggs and compared them to chicken eggs.
“We’re doing so many birding activities we might as well be birds!” one camper told another.
Campers found that the bobwhite eggs had thicker shells, and many campers were completely able to take the shell off of their egg but leave the membrane intact!
Campers then moved on to the egg drop experiment, where they made an apparatus to protect an egg when dropped from a balcony. All campers had successful egg drops with no broken eggs!
After this, campers hiked back to camp for a taco dinner. Campers helped to clean the camp and do dishes before heading out on a night hike. On the night hike, campers visited the owls and listened to owl calls of a Barred Owl, Barn Owl, Great Horned Owl, and Screech Owl. Near camp, campers saw a field full of fireflies.
Thursday morning started out with a power walk from the campsite to the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary’s Spruce Lodge, where the campers ate breakfast. From here, campers walked to visit the raptors.
At the Bird Sanctuary classroom, campers learned about resource allocation by doing an experiment with bird feeding. Campers used a stopwatch, corn to feed birds, and data tracking sheets to record how birds would move according to available food. We found that more birds would go to plots with more available corn.
This activity helped campers practice both data collection and analysis and become real scientists! After this, campers played games and had a pizza lunch before getting on the bus to head back to Tollgate.
Here are the additional photos from today! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxAJ4tNw1yhpcng2ellUR2UxTkk?usp=sharing