“Sparkler”
July 13, 2026
“Sparkler” is a uniquely New England word for a full-sun, low humidity day. My guess is that by the standards of many of you, a dozen or so Sparklers have already occurred here at Kingswood. But yesterday was about as perfect as it gets. Add a touch of coolness plus a bit of breeze to the above-mentioned traits, and there you have it.
The program gurus, accordingly, scrapped whatever plans they had on paper and declared an official Sparkler Day, meaning that just about all the activities were nature-related and off the property or on the lake.
This is programming on the fly and Kingswood is terrific at this!
I volunteered to lead my traditional short trek along the aptly-named “Moose Poops” trail (yes, a play on the Moose Scoops ice cream stand down the road) and along the way we did indeed find a pile of scat (bear, most likely) larger than a softball!
We were not looking for intestinal deposits so much as for the pitcher plants that inhabit a perfect environment back in the woodsy swamp close to camp. The pitchers are carnivorous plants (i.e., they digest bugs who get trapped inside those large petals) and the boys discovered a healthy population of them this year, conditions being very good for propagation. Check out my photo album.
Another group headed off to the seldom-climbed Blueberry Mountain, also not far from camp. I had allowed that maybe the first ripened berries might be found. Underscore the maybe! The kids had a nice hike and enjoyed some good views and found maybe a dozen edible berries in all. They brought home one berry and gave it to me! Blueberries = August in most summers up here.
Speaking of August, our perfect weather day resembled next month in that it was cool to begin with, turned very pleasantly warm in the afternoon, and ended up cold at sunset. That’s why I call August “Lost & Found” month, as boys strip off those sweatshirts midday and lose track of them. Go back to the photo of L&F posted yesterday.
There were other expeditions and I expect you will find photos of them sooner than later.
Sara wants you to know that her photo upload of yesterday featured an effort to show boys having fun in a beautiful environment. She found some pretty neat angles and clever shadowing. Enjoy.
Global warming surely is a bad thing for our globe, but if it is going to happen anyway, the southwest shore of Lake Tarleton is the place to be.
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