Return of Winter

Just when the snow was retreating, we've had a wintry setback.  12 inches of a setback.  I had been taking pictures to show how close we were to being able to play some of the outdoor sports, but then all of camp was transformed overnight.  It's a bit of a setback after thinking Spring was going to get a running start this year.

Snow or no snow we went on with some Spring cleaning.  Cleaning week at Camp Barakel is a week where the whole staff splits up and spends most of three days cleaning an assigned area.  My area was Heritage and we were able to fly through it in two days.  We start on the ceilings and work our way down through the lights, bunks, bathrooms, and carpets.  I enjoy cleaning the high stuff cause I get to use a ladder, and most other people don't seem to enjoy it so much.  Here are some pictures from that view.

When we weren't cleaning (Monday, Friday, then 3-5pm Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) I was painting the staff room of the East Side Dining Hall.  Last week I mentioned scraping the ceiling with the guys.  Well this week I primed and painted the whole ceiling with help from Titus.  Then Mike Baker and Mike Alchin joined us to rip up the carpet and take out some of the tiles.  It's nice to make a whole lot of progress with the help of the other guys.

Later!

Work and Run

Things are still settling in for the off season.  This has been a lot different than last year.  Mike Baker had surgery and is supposed to take it easy for the next couple weeks and Dan Haines just welcomed another son.  That left us short of guys right when we're trying to ramp up projects.  So I spent some time with Dan starting the tile for the Great Room in Crosscut.  Each piece of tile is about a 20 inch square.  It's been really hard to get the tiles level, but Dan does most of that while I keep the mortar ready and help him out along the way.

We are also doing some remodeling work in the East Side Dining Hall Staff Room.  Over the summer we had a rainstorm that worked it's way through the ceiling, causing a fair amount of damage.  Now we are putting in some new tile, moving some cabinets around, and refinishing the drywall.  In order to prepare the room for the drywall guys, Mike Alchin has been tearing down wallpaper and replacing damaged drywall.  While doing that he realized we needed to smooth out the textured ceiling, and he recruited a couple of us to scrape at the ceiling.  It was a fairly grueling bit of work, but the three of us made light work of it.

That was the gist of the work for the week.  I ended up making a run home again.  I stopped in Rochester and spent some time with Barakel friends from that area.  Then I hustled home on Saturday afternoon, just in time for the Taco Uno party at my church.  I took one quick picture, then realized that it doesn't have tacos or Uno cards in it.  That's all right though.  I think.  You can still see that we were gathered at tables talking at least.

Now I'm posting this while sitting in the narthex of the church.  I'm about to drive back up to camp, picking Sam Doyle up on the way.  I hope your March Madness brackets are doing better than mine is.  Oh, and if you don't have one, then you are blessed beyond the rest of us.

Thanks for reading!

A Different Week

After ten weeks of camp we now transfer back into the off season routine.  Out of the five guys in the maintenance crew, two were gone for the week, leaving us with a little bit of a different week.  The bathroom partitions in Crosscut are all finished up now and we have started updating the staff room in the East Side Dining Hall.  We also took out the bathroom counters from Snowshoe lodge.  They have had some kind of white splash stains on them for quite a while, we finally have some time to take them out and get them refinished before campers return in May.

This being the first open weekend of the year, I rushed home on Friday afternoon.  It was a good chance to catch up with people at home.  I ate at Pizza Sam's a couple of times and even attended follies at the Calhoun Christian School on Friday night.  I also used the opportunity to buy some supplies.  It's funny what a little orange juice, some cereal, parmesan cheese, and a box of candy bars will do for me.  Most of it will last through this Spring season at camp.

The three boxes of Poptarts from Big Lots are not pictured above.  Garrison Hills is always central to my trips home.  I try to catch up with a lot of people, especially the Youth Pastor from my church.  I end up seeing him at Pizza Sam's a couple times, but I almost always get to go to church on Sunday mornings.  I don't get to catch up with everyone as much as I'd like, but it's just nice to see faces again after two and half months.

There's good old Garrison Hills.  Rob was also home on Spring Break, and I was happy to see him for a little bit.  Hopefully I'll get to come and go in Battle Creek a couple more times over the next months.

Wrapping Up Winter

For our last weekend of Winter camping I don't think anyone knew how the tubing hill or cross country skiing would go.  We didn't have much snow left to move around camp, so we just waited it out.  Friday afternoon we had rain which led to great tubing runs Friday night.  They were fast, and you could go to the end of the run and all the way back down.  Then overnight we accumulated about 4 inches that stuck to all the icy trees and roads.  It was enough to even open the cross country ski trails for the first time in 3 weekends. 

We only used the West side of camp, but it was pretty full with two different retreats at once.  Meals were staggered on Saturday, which made them fairly long for doing dishes, but it was at a leisurely pace that's nice at this time of year.  I was able to play broomball with a team from Kalamazoo.  I don't know why they let me join them, cause they were already really good.  It was a blast to play some extra broomball, and a nice way to top off the season. 

On Sunday afternoon I went out cross country skiing for the first time this year.  I don't know why I didn't get to it earlier, but I couldn't resist all the pine trees heavily laden with snow.  It just made me think of the song "Indescribable" by Chris Tomlin.  Here are the pictures, guest starring Titus Brown.

It's also worth noting that we finished up the last bathroom of tiling, and after the partitions the bathrooms will be all set except fixtures.  So we're still moving along on Crosscut and we're looking forward to seeing some major progress now that the retreat season is over.

Thanks for following and God bless.