Dear Mom and Dad,

Well the first day at camp was nothing like I thought it was going to be. Are you sure this is the camp with the beautiful brochure we looked at? Did you really mean to send me here?

First of all, we got up at like 6:30, way earlier than I’m used to. Then, instead of a nice breakfast of farm eggs and home-cured bacon, we trudged down to the green house to pick greens and radishes for the farm stand. That was okay except it was really cold at first and then it got really hot, so I had to, like, go back to the cabin to change my tee-shirt twice. Not sure you packed enough play clothes for me.

Then we had to water what seemed like two billion tomato seedlings. I thought maybe we’d at least get to run through a sprinkler or squirt each other, but they don’t let you do that here. Supposedly we are going to walk down to a creek later this week to collect watercress, but that’s hardly like going to the beach.

Later on we had to hike over to the smelly chicken coops and collect eggs. A hen tried to peck my earring off my earlobe when I grabbed her egg. It was pretty hot in there, too. And did I mention stinky? Plus, there are like hundreds of chickens so the bucket of eggs was really heavy. And then, you wouldn’t believe it, but we had to wash and package up all those eggs!

Then there was some excitement because the refrigerator at the farm stand broke. So the maintenance guy (he’s also the head counselor) had to stop what he was doing (fixing a barn roof I think) and come and haul another refrigerator out of the mess hall and saw off a piece of the farm stand counter to fit it in.

Our job was to move like 50 dozen eggs and lots of other stuff from one refrigerator to the other. And then sweep up the mess at the farm stand after he got that done.

In the afternoon we planted lettuce seedlings. I don’t know why as there already seem to be a lot of lettuce seedlings around this place. Only we don’t get to eat any—it’s all for the farm stand customers. We had hamburgers and pretzels last night for dinner. Can you believe it? Some farm fare. Oh, they did let us go down to the asparagus patch and cut asparagus, but there was only enough for like, one per camper.

The worst was the after-dinner activity. I thought we were going to build a camp fire, or have movie night or game night or something. Instead they stuck us out in the back field and had us pick rocks out of the dirt and rake them up to the tractor bucket.

There is one good thing about this camp—they let the camp dog and kitty sleep in your bunk with you. In fact, the farm dog pretty much comes along on all our activities with us.

So like, its’ only May, and I am supposed to be here all summer? When can you come pick me up? Next summer can I go to that camp where you go to the beach all day and lie in the sand?

Love,

Camper Sue

P.S. My counselor took these pictures. She is trying to make the place look nicer than it really is.