Stoney Oaks Ranch owner Angela May smiled wide as she announced the two-week long camp sessions she will be holding this summer. Seated outside the barn with hay blowing across the shaded patio, she leaned back in the direction of paired rocking chairs and talked over some of the modifications that were put in place at the facility following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m capping it at 15 kids and instead of everyone being together like usual, we’re splitting into three small groups to work in rotations,” May said.
The ranch owner calls the handful of employees and consistent volunteers The Barn Family, says they have been in “a bit of a bubble,” removed from society and interacting with the same few people through the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing.
“All the kids who have signed up so far are from this area; the arms haven’t gone out too wide and everyone has been vetted for possible exposure,” May said.
Still, before coming through the gate each morning, May will be taking each child’s temperature and instead of providing snacks and lunch as in years’ past, May is requiring all kids to bring their own food from home.
“Everything will be sanitized before and after kids go in those areas, hands are going to be washed over and over again— I just feel like we’ve got to find a way to have these kids who have been isolated at home for so long get out into the summer air. We can do it safely,” May said.
Days on the ranch are geared toward kids who are between four and twelve years old, an age group she says was hard-hit by an abrupt change when schools closed and lessons were moved to home-based schooling in support of social distancing.
“These kids are at an age where they hear the news out there, they see that COVID is real, they worry about sickness and out here, when you’re cleaning up after cows, that’s just gone for five hours a day,” May said.
Planned camp sessions for a modified summer include farm camp, horsemanship, riding and a general sense of what it’s like to be immersed in a working ranch.
“There’s ducks, chickens, lots of work to be done. It is amazing in so many ways but it is work. I want the kids to understand the responsibility of caring for ranch animals,” May said.
She laughs as she describes Poop for Popsicles, a fun way to earn an end-of-the-day treat after mucking out manure.
The 43-year old ranch owner says she tries to make days fun while also imparting a sense of tradition into events at the ranch, whether she is hosting Boy Scouts on overnight campouts to welcoming school kids onfield trips prior to the COVID outbreak.
May points out the morteres and metates bored into large boulders at the ranch, holes left over from Kumeya’ay grinding nuts and seeds down into flour long before the ranch existed.
“You know, my great-grandparents lived here before I-8 even existed, there was just old Highway 80. We’re Alpine people: boot-wearing, dusty jeans, fix-it-yourself ranch owners. I look back on my childhood and I’m so grateful I grew up here. I wish every kid had this,” May said.