Wood and Stuff

If a tree falls at Camp Barakel, will Mike Baker cut it into pieces?  The answer is almost always yes.  Not only that first tree, but any dead ones that we find in the area.  So we'll often find a fallen tree, then end up taking about four trees to the wood pile.  Leaving with two chainsaws, a can of gas, a bottle of oil, a pick up truck, and the sky track, we'll make short work of a lot of wood.  Just last week we started the day by cleaning up a tree that fell on the bike path, along with some trees that were leaning over the path.  In about 45 minutes of work, we gathered a good load for the sky track.  We add the big pieces of wood to the pile that the high school Engineers will work on next summer and we'll burn some of the brush in the new burn bunker.

Speaking of the sky track.  It's kind of the "do all" around camp.  Any job you can think of, the sky track has an application.  It helps us change high up light bulbs, move large pieces of wood, push stuck cars out, clean up trails, and lift the zipline carts.  You can probably see how it becomes a favorite tool around camp.  I'd personally love to use it for a temporary rope swing at the water front.  The possibilities are almost endless,  although this week we experienced one of the rare occasions where the tree was so large it was just easier to pull it with a truck.

The sky track can also be a glorified ladder sometimes.  So much so that you wonder how you did jobs without the sky track before.  We've been working on demolishing a small portion of the garage that was damaged over the summer and replacing it.  We used the sky track to reach the top of the 14 foot section we needed to tear apart.  Mike Baker pulled off the paneling and we discovered no less than 20 bats, and a wasp nest that was about 9 inches in diameter.  After taking care of the damaged wall we've framed the new section of the wall and started filling in the gap with paneling.  

Well, when I mention that we cut a lot of wood around here that's a little summary of it.  We also have a lot of little projects that we dive into throughout any given week, like reconstructing a corner of the garage.  This weekend saw about 150 campers go through camp during a Couples Retreat and a Mother/Son retreat.  It was a lot of fun seeing sons having a blast with their mothers on Thunder Express and on the Zipline.  Thank God for a place that people are able to rejuvenate their relationship with Him.