Wake up, Parents! Summer is right around the corner! If you want your little darlings to get spots in those dream camps that will secure their places on the World Badminton team, guarantee them first chairs in the kazoo orchestra, teach them to knit earmuffs for underprivileged yetis, or just get them out of your hair for a week, then you need to be on this. Like yesterday!
Erin: All of my dreams are fiscally conservative, and in my experience the cheap camps are the first to fill up.
Ellen: Well, I got a brochure for a camp that’s in no danger of filling up: The Country School Farm: An Experience For Children Who Love Animals.
Here is the actual daily schedule:
Erin: They list chores no less than three times without even a crackling of sugar coating and then with a little more guile at least three more times. Projects? Never has a word been more worthy of air quotes.
Erin: But how much for this Dickensian work camp?
Ellen: Five days of Nirvana for only $780 plus travel expenses to Ohio.
Erin: Wait! What!?! That camp is getting PAID that much to have kids shipped there to do their farm work!?!
Ellen: Yep. For ages SIX to twelve.
Erin: Drop whatever you’re doing, because we’re founding a camp!
The Sisterhood Chain Gang Summer Camp
For 50 bucks, a case of Diet Coke, and 4 pounds of Starbucks Coffee (whole bean), you can send your child to the paradise that is the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Your child will have the time of his or her life in not one, but two bucolic locations. Your child will get to view two beautiful rivers through the safety of a minivan’s back window, as we whisk your precious babe from one work site fun-filled location to another. (Upon further reflection, we’re going to need $20 in gas money too. And snacks. You should definitely pack snacks. We’re partial to Cheez-its and Double-Stuffed Oreos.)
Boredom is unknown at The Sisterhood Camp. From sunup to sundown your child can partake in the following activities specially developed to hone skills, build confidence, and make our (particular) world a better place to live.
Environmental Stewardship
With an eye to creating future leaders concerned about a cleaner, greener planet, we will teach your innocents to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle like a boss! We’ll even throw in an “R” unique to The Sisterhood Camp—Relieve us of our clutter.
The fun never stops as campers clean out typical hoarders’ garages. The kids have the times of their lives as they race to see who can fill the dumpster the fastest. Winner gets to take a water break. But that’s not all! Campers get to visit the local landfill and shake the hands of the sanitation workers too!
Back at the camp, they will join our special “Make this, Martha!” seminar in which they use duct tape, spray-paint, and hot glue to transform junk into masterpieces. At The Sisterhood Camp, we believe you can turn any trash into a treasure that can earn us a couple of bucks at the local flea market!
But it’s not all just good times, we pride ourselves in putting the work in “Working to Make This World a Greener Place.” Hours will be spent every day breaking down and sorting materials for recycling. We even offer a special “Box Cutting 101” safety course for our more seasoned campers because with this much work to be done, we don’t have time to go to the E.R..
Trailblazing
Once the campers have proven themselves indoors, they are ready for the great outdoors or at least the trail behind Erin’s house! They’ll spend the day working on miles of trail and be rewarded by sleeping in tents that night! What better incentive to make that ground level, clear, and poop free than knowing they’ll be sleeping on it!
The highlight of the day— for most of them— is learning to use a chainsaw and axe. On a separate note, campers will also learn more advanced first aid i.e. securing a tourniquet.
Textile Resuscitation
Now don’t worry, we haven’t left out evening activities! We let each camper do at least one load of laundry every day and more if they’ve behaved! We will teach them the finer points of Stain Discernment and Treatment, Determining the Best Detergent for the Load, The Fine Art of Reading Labels, and The Ins and Outs of Folding. Top off the day with a special “Sort the Socks” game!
And We Did Not Forget About Recreation . . .
We stand by our motto, “We put the blood, sweat, and tears into having fun.” In fact, we’ll have your precious ones iron that on t-shirts to forever remember their time here because blisters don’t last forever.
Camps with pools are a dime a dozen, but where else can a child learn how to build a pool? Your child will sludge through the process from permit to pool chemistry. And, as an added bonus, they will become one with the earth as they dig that bad boy out by hand because minors aren’t allowed to operate backhoes, we checked.
And as an added added bonus they will become wizards at time management. If they need to work through dinner to pour that concrete, gosh darnit, they will buckle down and do it. Cement cures on its own schedule and schedules are meant to be followed. People are expecting a pool for the annual Labor Day party. And a fire pit.
Remember:
“What good is fun if you haven’t earned it?”
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Barnyard animals are so country-dirty. This is a city-grit we can relate to. Sign us up!
Urban Flowerpot recently posted..YO! Gonna Gonna Die Foofa!
We’ll email you with where to send the Diet Coke and Starbucks. Ellen
I need more specifics: how much will the t-shirts cost, and what color will they be? (Might want to go with orange … easy to spot should a young one start to wander from the work site, er, I mean campsite.) Also, will there be time for campers to learn the finer skills of lawn mowing and fence building? I’m not paying for them to just sit around getting a suntan.
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They’ll be finding the t-shirts in the garage of course!
And we would be overjoyed to develop a custom program for your youngster. We’ll even throw in power washing. Ellen
Sign my kid up. I’ll send her with Oreos and Sour Patch Kids.
Ginger Kay recently posted..A Library I Hate to Love
You know Erin too well with the Sour Patch Kids! We’ll give your kid first use of the chainsaw. Ellen
Sounds perfect! Can husbands be campers too? Mine could operate the backhoe.
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Hmmm, if we got the backhoe running, we could probably squeeze the tennis courts in for this summer too. 🙂 Ellen
Forget hosting a kids’ camp, you need to host a moms’ camp. I call shotgun on the backhoe! Let’s all send our kids to the farm camp and you can show us how to use a chainsaw. Seriously, a camp with you two would be a riot. I’ll bring the wine and cheez-its, homemade cheez-its from a recipe I saw on Pinterest. 🙂
The mom camp launches after the pool and Tiki bar are finished. Stay tuned! Ellen
P.S. -Pinterest reference . . . nice.
This is awesome. The wife and I were just talking about camps last night. She found this one that appears to be some kind of Lord of the Rings camp. There’s even a line in the brochure about getting to explore middle earth which, locally, is more commonly referred to as Sellwood Park. And it’s for 5-6 yr olds! That seems pretty young to be battling orcs with swords.
In fairness though, this camp comes highly recommended and I guess the LOTR aspect is just a theme they put over teaching kids about wilderness. And I’m guessing my 5 yr old will be attending it.
Christian at Point Counter-Point Point Point recently posted..What Kind of Noodler Are You?
Come to our camp instead! Your 5 year old can dig to middle earth in my backyard. We’ll even make an age exception. Ellen
Hey, don’t knock The Country School Farm camp. As a former camper, I enjoyed getting up at 5:30am to do laboring chores. And what can be more relaxing than doing some back-breaking manual labor all afternoon followed by a heavy bloating dinner and then having to completely clean darn near every thing in the kitchen area afterwards? It is quite a bargain to only pay $780 for the privilege.
I am confident that the paragraph above has never been written EVER! Do you think when they made the brochure for this place that everyone involved were constantly cracking up? Well anyway, great work ladies!
Thank you! It’ll be good to get some manual labor done around here. 🙂 Ellen
Do I get a discount by sending my strapping 14 year old AND his father (who is licensed to run a backhoe as luck would have it)?
Work, fun, bonding – sounds like an incredible deal. You deserve more than food items. Who do I make the check out to?
Mom Rants and Comfy Pants recently posted..Beat of a Different Drummer (and Other Noises in My Head)
I’m a former summer camp employee and this sounds like you have really planned a fantastic summer for your campers! Barn camp, not so much. I could host a satellite campus in my neck of the woods. You think about it.:)
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Wait my 13 year old can run a backhoe. he did it when we were digging out footers to set up my mom’s trailer.. so yeah just like don’t tell anyone ok. Scary part is he would LOVE all of this. .seriously I think he got switched in the nursery.. Oh but not his room. His room LOOKS like the barn in the above mentioned camp but he will clean the rest of the house.
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OMGOSH this is SPECTACULAR!!! So freaking HILARIOUS!!! I wanna send my kids there!!! Where can I get the application? You girls are brilliant!
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“If we dream it, YOU can make it happen.” That is just inspirational. I wish I had more than 4 kids to send. Also, SCATtergories? Genius. This post is perfect. So funny.
Bethany @ Bad Parenting Moments recently posted..Something sticky this way comes.
My kid has a peanut allergy- can he still come? Oreos don’t have peanuts so he should be fine, right? He loves to ride in the car so I think your field trips/transportation from one work site to another sound right up his alley.
One thing you need to add: Have one of the guys from that “Scared Straight” show give an encouraging “talk” one of the days.
Vicky
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Our applications are in the mail. Just how much is that deposit again?
Jamie@SouthMainMuse recently posted..Cycling on beautiful day, who cares if the bridge is out?
This is hilarious! And sounds perfect for me and my wallet. If having time to just “be” is what we’re doing with our kids these days then I shall give them lots of time to “be” at home…helping me.
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Great idea! I was just pissing and moaning today about the upcoming childcare bills for the summer…I could quit my job and make more in one summer running a summercamp than I will make all year…AND my house and yard will be in order. Let me know if you plan on franchising, we could hook up.
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Sign mine up. He keeps complaining that he can’t help.declutter the garage because we’re hoarders. So he just needs practice.
Done. I’ll even send him with a junior plumbing starter kit. Get him proficient on toilet snaking, will you?
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“Scat”tergories! OMG!! Where do I sign them up??? The twins are not yet potty trained – that’s not a problem, right?
The Next Step recently posted..The Shock of My Life
We’ll have the older kids train ’em. Character building and all that! Erin
fantastic! it can be a whole new level of “scat”tergories!!
The Next Step recently posted..Roses are Red
I didn’t see any mention of the ‘Dishwasher Loading Awareness’ workshop?
Oh my gosh, I wish we’d thought of that. Genius. Erin
Omigod! I was laughing so hard during this whole post! I loved the haymaking euphamism remark — and your own version of the game “scat”egories — and build your own pool! Just a priceless comparison to the farm camp! Love it!
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We were inspired! Glad you liked it! Erin
I went to Girl Scout Camp as a kid and they made us do physical labor in the forest. We built the entire “Cinderella Staircase” by carrying buckets of dirt and logs and basically finished a large-scale construction project one summer.
Child labor is awesome!
Wowzers! Evil geniuses build the best camps! Erin
Are you franchising?? I can open up a Birmingham Location!!
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My kids are on their way. I didn’t have coffee so I sent them with a box of wine; I hope that’s ok. Hope to meet you at BlogHer!
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