Service project, community style

So, I spent a week at summer camp. This was the second year I've gone
without my son (who's no longer a Boy Scout). This might sound like I'd have an easier time but there's the same amount of paperwork, travel preparation and organizing no matter who is there. Having fewer troop members may be a little easier, mainly on the lower number of interpersonal conflicts that could arise. This year we had 3 Scouts who are 17, meaning this will be their last camp as youth. Each of them have few merit badges left to complete before qualifying for Eagle Scout.

Scout camps usually have group goals in additions to individual goals of advancements, merit badges, certifications. During years when we have troop members that rush through (or skip) merit badge classes, we'll encourage them to work on group projects, rather than sit around chatting or complaining. They can do that at home and don't need me to hear and see it. But this year the group was rather small and the group goals were going to be difficult due to the range of ages and activities all were doing (the camp calls this ages and stages).

Ockanickon offers clean camp award, patrol and troop recognition for completion of tasks lists. We kept a clean camp as a result of our Leave No Trace awareness level and earned that award with little extra effort.

The camp ran a one hour introduction to Leave No Trace on Tuesday night; we didn't know it was geared for adults and brought a couple troop members with us. They reviewed the seven principles. While I struggled to follow some of the logic that was offered behind the principles, I thought the example that the youth leader gave about burying a chocolate bar beneath a fire to demonstrate how not to impact the ground was one with easy to verify results.

The next day, our Senior Patrol Leader, with my encouragement, asked for a camp improvement project for our troop, and we were given the task of dispersing ashes from a large fire pit. The first picture shows what it looked like before we started.



It may be hard to tell from this angle, but ashes were about 1 foot deep, in a circle over 6 feet in diameter. We gathered a pick mattock, shovels (properly called spoons for this work), rakes and gloves from our stock and from the camp quartermaster.



The second photo is a montage showing our scouts and Scoutmaster at work, as well as the area director stopping by for inspection.



The third photo shows the finished product, with stones restored to more of a barrier, a lowered ash level, and our trademark troop number. I would have liked to shrink the circle farther to encourage smaller fires, but our Senior Patrol Leader decided we would leave it as it was. The camp can fairly easily move the rocks closer together in the future.



The fourth photo shows a mushroom growing in the firepit at our camp site. We shared a site with a larger troop, who built a campfire on several nights, but we did not have one all week. A couple nights we lit 2 citronella candles, which made a nice glow beneath our large canopy. Otherwise, there wasn't a need for fire: it rained a few nights; it was summertime so it was hot; and, we were just too busy doing things to sit around.



I shot this next photo through the floorboards of my tent platform, and did a short photo blog when I spotted it. You can also see parts of a hanger, and possibly a carabiner, all of which I pulled out from under with help from a couple spotters and a rake.



The last photo is a battery I found at the "card players" table outside the camp trading post.

Finally, a 15 second video clip called:

Peanut Butter and Banana



(note the young Scout wearing a Leave No Trace T shirt!)

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4 batteries, a lead weight, Public Notice [sic], and make way for ducklings

I hunted batteries on this 4-hour semi-urban hike, with a smaller bag than the last one, but a still respectable four AAs, along with an equal weight lead wheel balancing slug. Good thing to pick up and keep out of the waterways. I just drop the lead weight, and other steel parts I pick up, into my recycle bags, hoping the separation process treats them like steel cans, maybe with a lot of solder. The batteries I hold onto until I get a large amount, and then take them to a battery store, where once again, I hope they make it back into the raw material stream for new battery production.

The first 3 were several feet apart, at the downhill side of the Middlesex shopping center parking lot, like dinosaur fossils collected at a flooded stream site.












Can you read this?






How about now? Driving at 40 MPH I never even saw the sign, and I defy anyone to know what it says without stopping and walking right up to it, which I happened to do by accident today.

Well, the sign says, to the best of my photo interpretation and typing skills:

= = = =
PUBLIC NOTICE OF A RESPONSE ACTION PLAN
AND PUBLIC INFORMATIONAL MEETING
Chesapeake Park Plaza
Tax Block B

The property located at 2323 Eastern Blvd in Middle River, Maryland has been accepted into Maryland's Voluntary Cleanup Program. A proposed Response Action Plan (RAP) has been submitted to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) for approval. Concentrations of mercury and lead in soils exceed target cleanup goals and require cleanup. Execution of the RAP will provide for cleanup of areas with these compounds in excess of cleanup goals through excavation and off-site disposal of affected soils. It is projected that the project will require about 1 month to complete. Excavations will then be backfilled with imported clean soil and finished to grade to allow continued use of the area

This RAP is based upon the potential future use of the property for residential purposes.

Participant: Lockheed Martin Corporation
6801 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD 21817

Contact: Gail Rymer
800-449-4486

Eligible Property: Chesapeake Park Plaza, Map 90, Grid 18, Parcel 964, Block B
2323 Eastern Blvd., Middle River, MD 21220

Public Informational Meeting: April 30, 2008 at 7 p.m.
Middle River Volunteer Fire Hall
1100 Wilson Point Road, Middle River, MD 21220

Any persons wishing to request further information or make comments regarding the proposed RAP must do so in writing. Comments or requests should be submitted to the attention of the Voluntary Cleanup Program project managers, Gary Schold or Richelle Hanson, at the Maryland Department of the Environment, 1800 Washington Boulevard, Suite 625, Baltimore, Maryland, 21230; telephone 410-537-3493.

All comments and requests must be received by the Department in writing no later than May 22, 2008.

= = = =

Well, the meeting is only a few days away, and I already have 2 commitments, but I will pass this on (besides to my blog readers, if any). Not really much of a disclosure, but: I worked at MDE for 17 years. That was over 10 years ago now.

Near the sign, on the way back home, I sat and waited for the 10AM Acela train run. My patience was rewarded with this shot, on its way to Google Earth













A guy in a Cooper Mini was acting strangely at the traffic light at the end of MD 43, backing up and waving. Turns out he spotted a row of ducks crossing the busy highway, and was trying to protect them from being run over. I grabbed my camera and got 4 shots, but they were moving fast and the little ones were well camouflaged while in the tall grass. Cute once they got in the water. Thumbs up to the animal lover!

The final trash haul today, except for a gas cap that hid in my pack until later.





hike view per google maps and panoramio

Hey buddy, got a light?

After participating in "Dark Hour" at the end of March, I got to thinking about lighting. I have a couple books on solar energy and related topics, including a study of the Amish "Living Without Electricity" and I inherited a storm lantern from my grandfather. But I seem to have accumulated many more other portable light sources than I realized.

In order to make a little visual sense out of this, I collected every flashlight and at least 1 liquid fueled lamp, ignoring candles and a few other oddities, like battery operated Christmas lights and took a few family portraits.

The lamp in the center is rechargeable, either through a solar panel or a 110v transformer. It includes 2 lamps - 1 fluorescent and 1 LED based. Either or both can be switched on. I've found that the LED bulb will start when the battery is weak and the other won't. However, it is difficult to read by. I've been using it for getting ready to go to work in the morning, where in the past I would have lit the bathroom, kitchen and other lights just to move around with stumbling into something. The solar panel now sits in our front window. I take it on trips with the Scout troop.

The other "big" light in the picture background is a double 6-volt lantern battery with a fluorescent bulb. I have another one, not pictured, that also uses 2 6V batteries, but has 2 bulbs and switches to light 1 or both. But it isn't working.

In the left side of the picture are a non-working single 6V lantern (incandescent bulb I think), and a small LED flashlight that uses 3 AAA batteries. I got this from Broad Creek Scout camp last year, and have found it much more useful than prior gifts of mugs and knives. The original batteries wore down and it now works great with 3 rechargeable NiMH ones.

Also on the left side is my camping flashlight, a headband model with 3 levels of brightness. It runs off 3 NiMH batteries. Colin Fletcher's The Complete Walker advises not to get cheap versions of this style. As I've dropped mine several times, I can attest to the worth of this advice. When I first saw Scouts walking around looking like the 7 Dwarves I though it was a bit odd, but after using this in the deep dark woods I was a fast convert.

On the left side of the picture are several D cell flashlight models. I have 2 dead double cell versions, and 2 working Mag Lites - one 2-D and one 3-D battery versions. They have krypton bulbs, or something like that, but I have seen LED bulbs on same at a big box store. I have a 2 AA model that I formerly used when camping, and now just take it along for backup.

Will using rechargeable portable lights end our oil dependence? Probably not, but carrying a lantern that was juiced directly from the sun is a charge!