To read part six of day thirteen, click here.

We turned onto a road that went slightly uphill, past the buildings where the instructors live when they’re not on a course.

“Look! There’re chickens there! There’s some Barred Rocks, there’s a Rhode Island Red, and that one looks like it’s a Buff Orpington.”

My crewmates were looking at me like I had three heads. “What? I’m a farm girl! We’ve had all three of those breeds before.”

I hate chickens, but it was good to see something that reminded me of home. We’ve had chickens on and off since I was a little girl, and one day I was in the pen with them. We had a couple of roosters back then, and one of them was mean. Well, he flew up into my face and pecked me, and ever since then I’ve hated chickens. We got rid of that rooster not long after that. LOL

We turned off the road and dropped our packs in a clearing surrounded by buildings. The crew stood around awkwardly, waiting for the next thing.

“Okay, crew, this is Maggie. She’s going to help you guys. Listen to her, okay?”

Everyone looked at Maggie. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”

She assigned everyone a cleaning job. Some of us had to clean the black foam mats, some of us had to clean the food stuffs, and some of us had to clean the ducky suits.

There were more things to clean, but I don’t remember everything.

The radio was playing and we were all singing along as we got the work done. We had motivation – as soon as we were done, we were going to be able to shower!

It was probably around one or two when we finished. Maggie walked around inventorying everything we returned, trying to figure out what we were missing. We were going to have to pay for anything that had been lost.

“If it helps you, Maggie, we lost a small baby seal and several strands of para-cord. I know that.”

She winced. “You guys lost a baby seal?”

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*