Finally the Snow is Here

For those of you who followed the fire we had in December, our wood supply is looking good.  We took a lot of trees down in the maintenance yard and cut them up for boiler wood this weekend.  It was a lot of fun and we had some major help from some of Mike Baker's nephews. 

They were able to lift some huge chunks of wood onto the splitter.

Because of the extra help and extra work over the past couple of weeks we've been able to basically catch up on our wood supply already.  The splitter has saved us countless maul strikes.  Now Randy is thinking we have just about enough wood split to get us through the retreat season for the boilers.

The Skytrak lines them up, and Mike Alchin cuts them up.



Some of the guys kept the brush pile going all day.



We left about 12 stumps around the yard.  Now it's open for some landscaping and a redesign.

When we weren't moving wood around, we had a stove to replace in the East Side Dining Hall.  Last week one of the stoves caught on fire through what I'm told was an electrical issue.  Thankfully there was no damage to the dining hall, but the stove sustained too much damage to fix it.  So this week we moved the old stove out and then put the new stove back in.  It was one of those lifting things where you can hardly get enough guys to carry it around.

I think Kieth spent a lot of time wondering exactly how we'd sort all of this out.

And finally... SNOW!  We got the snow we needed to run the tubing hill this weekend.  It loaded up all the trees so they sagged real low.  Very much a Winter Wonderland for the weekend.  With that came a lot of work on Friday to clean it all up.  Brad Smith, and 6 kids from Mike's family really helped out, cleaning up the whole West Side of camp before lunch.  It was a great effort.

Something about 6 inches of snow on a tether ball caught my eye.

So the snow was here for the Father/Son and Winter Teen retreats.  It was neat to see so many people I recognized this weekend.  I had about 3 campers on the East Side and several folks that I've just met over the years here at camp.  Several of the dish workers were former summer staffers, and of course I was excited to see Rob and Elizabeth helping out this weekend. 

Tom Harmon and Brian Harmon were the speakers this weekend and I was really excited to have both of them here.  They speak so much differently, but they both are very clear about the Gospel message which I understand was well received this weekend.  Praise the Lord for that!


The sun trying to break through the clouds on Monday morning.



Winter?

They say it's Winter here, but it's definitely not what I expect out of Winter.  We had a fair amount of snow as the weekend approached, but 50 degree weather on Friday torched the snow off the hill.  Thankfully the ice rinks held up well for the Father/Son and College/Career Winter Retreats. 



Staff kids and seasonal at the first hockey outing of the year.


Camp seems like it would be crippled without snow, but it really isn't.  With cold weather the inside options become even more fun, and the messages in chapel are just as penetrating as ever.  Because of the College/Career Retreat I was running pretty hard this weekend trying to catch up with people and keep up with my responsibilities.  I was able to play broomball with some friends from years past and we won the tournament with much of the team we had last year. 

As for projects, we took a bit of a break from wood this week to hit a couple different things around camp.  We tore down a shed near the West Side Trading Post (that I didn't even know was there) and carried the "jail" shed away from the East Side Trading Post. 



West Side Shed.  We kicked most of the boards out.  It was fun.

The East Side Shed was tricky to pick up and move.  But we managed to keep it in one piece.

Dan Haines put together a small (but heavy) fence in the Archery and Riflery areas on West Side.  The goal is to make it so that no one can be standing anywhere near where the archers are shooting.  I think he accomplished that, and I also believe this fence could take several shots from a battering ram.

This thing was super heavy for lifting.  That's me creeping up top with Dan's camera.

Extra curricularly I ran the clock at a girls basketball game and welcomed Kevin Pierpont and Reuben Peck to the trailer as Seasonal Staff for the Programing department.  It should go well because they are clean guys, but time will tell how true and consistent that is.

I'm also leading a Bible/Book study that Phyllis Douglas organized.  We had our first meeting Sunday evening with 8 guys from Fairview.  Our book is "The Measure of a Young Man" and we were able to set a reading plan after reading through the introduction.  All the guys stayed for a while to play/watch some different games.  I'm looking forward to going over the first unit next week.

So it's busy here.  We're praying for snow, but we're ready for anything at Camp Barakel.

Now for Another Year

This week was mostly unproductive with some spikes in the action over the weekend.  So how about we focus on the action?  Thursday I played volleyball and had a blast.  I'm always talking about how little running or sports I get in on at camp in the Fall so volleyball was good.  Then Friday I spent most of the day working on my car with the Youth Pastor at my church, Tim Wygant.  My car has a lot of humming and we figured it was a wheel bearing.  So we started looking into it on that raining Friday.

Tim working on the lug nuts.

Well we figured out quickly that the brakes were about as low as they could possibly get without making any screeching or grinding.  So we grabbed brakes and a wheel bearing down at good old Autozone.  That's when the next problem occurred.  We couldn't get the hub nut off to get down to the wheel bearing.  We had a good socket but even with a huge pipe we couldn't get it to budge.  When the axle started to look like it was getting stressed we gave up for the day. 

You can see the hub nut.  I have some ideas for how to attack it next time.

Now I'm just hoping (and praying) that everything holds together as I get ready to attempt another shot at it here at camp.  If needed I can just take in to the Fairview Garage to have Cliff take a look at the whole deal. 

After getting the car back together I rolled out for a Saturday Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Grand Rapids.  I knew a fair amount of people there and enjoyed seeing old friends while staying active.  My team finished second, but more importantly it was a pretty chill day.  After that I drove over to Rochester to celebrate the New Year before heading up to camp this afternoon. 

The first thing I got when I arrived was a package (and some nice Christmas cards from some of the staff).  So I figured the package was a shirt I purchased for my dad.  It ran late and didn't make Christmas, but I wasn't too worried about that.  He still would get it.  When I opened it to see exactly what I had purchased, this is what I found:

A medium petite dress valued at $64.

So yeah.  Probably not a great gift for dad.  I checked the slip and it has my real order with the proper price.  Now I just need to figure out how to return this lovely dress sometime.

Now it's 2012.  I'll be here at Camp Barakel for the rest of the year (Lord willing) and I'm hoping God will open hearts as we present the Gospel through 4 more seasons of camping.

Thanks for following!

Merry Christmas

I enjoyed a Christmas with Mom this morning.  She got a new laptop and a Boz Scaggs cd.  I got a couple blankets and some clothes.  Oh yeah, and a sweet surprise from Rob and Elizabeth that will be revealed on the tubing hill (or more likely at the Thunder Express with this lack of snow).  After church it's just a scattering of movies and basketball games for the rest of the day.

That's a box full of supplies from my church under the tree.

My favorite Christmas song is by Relient K.  Here are some selected lines:

*****
Because here is where you're finding me,
in the exact same place as New Year's eve
And from the lack of my persistency
We're less than half as close as I want to be.

And the first time that you opened your eyes did you realize that you would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left Your lips, did you know that it would change this world forever?

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That you were born so I might live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life.
*****

Reading it doesn't do it any justice (Youtube Link).  I've listening to this song and reflecting on the season and the new year that will be following it.

Merry Christmas!

So it's almost Christmas

With Christmas approaching this was my last week at camp for the year.  We had a lot of work to do, hoping to get the freezer and cooler running in the East Side Dining Hall.  As we finished the glassboard on the walls we had to start up on the doorways.  Unfortunately when we removed the doors the metal got a little beat up.  So Mike and I had to figure out how to bend up some metal casing for the freezer door.

The freezer door with newly bent metal.

Mike doing what he does with that Skillsaw.

Well we finished Thursday afternoon and all the freezer and cooler were working well.  We spent Friday morning cleaning up all the tools and equipment.  Dan Haines shampooed Room H, hopefully cleaning out the smell enough that we can use it.

Outside of work I finished up my present wrapping and it went a lot better as I kept working on it.  It was nice to put some presents under the tree Titus dropped off in the trailer.

Presents stacked up beneath the tree.  Most of them are given out already.

I left Friday afternoon for a trip through the Capital building in Lansing.  I'd never considered checking it out, but it was a lot of fun to see.  So several camp Barakel folks met up there for a tour and a bit of a party afterwards.  That was followed by some Saturday ice skating and the 2011 Barakel Bash.  

The Bash is a great opportunity to catch up with the Summer Staff from over the years.  I enjoyed some basketball and singing.  Not to mention running around with Rob for a while.  Now it's time to take a week off and chill out at home.  Without any snow on the ground I might even play some disc golf.  

The view passing the trailer.

Until next time.

Another Fire

So we've had some excitement here at camp this week.  A wood shed holding a lot of wood for our boilers burned down on Monday night.  We're thankful there were no injuries and nothing was lost that some hard work can't replace over the next months.  I'll go into the details of the fire below, but first I'll go over my week at camp.

Spray on insulation.  Very messy, but very effective.

Believe it or not we actually have more pressing matters to attend to than the fire here with the maintenance crew.  Now that the insulation has been sprayed in, we need to put up glassboard over our freezer and cooler in the East Side Dining Hall.  Once that's done we can fix up one of the hotel style rooms that had some water damage from the leaking.  With holiday weeks approaching and Winter camp following closely behind... we have to get this stuff done.

Benches under the new porch of the ESDH.

In the meantime Terry Shaw has put in some hard work on some new benches and a counter under the new porch on the ESDH.  I'm a big fan of this because it gives a couple more eating options for the campers and staff when weather permits.  I hope to enjoy meals and some relaxing moments on these benches this Spring and Summer.



Beautiful wrapping job.

I haven't wrapped anything in years!  My mom usually does it for me (I think she enjoys wrapping things) which has enabled me to ignore wrapping since I was a kid and would try to help out for fun.  This was my first attempt and it did the job.  I didn't even have to use any of my masking tape for it!  Hopefully no one is offended by poorly wrapped gifts this Christmas.

Now for the fire.  I'll go into the details, my role in it, and I'll try to explain some points of confusion.  First the story of the fire, then how it will affect us over the next months.  This will be a lot of words to read, so unless you're really interested in the fire I might drone on here.



What remains of the woodshed.

So on Monday evening I was over at the Ford's house.  They had treated me to some hamburgers and I was about to go to the first home game for Fairview's boys team.  Right when we were leaving (6:35 pm) Mike Baker came up to the door and told us that there was a fire in the Carpenter Shop area (Side note: This caused some folks to think it WAS the carpenter shop, but Mike was just trying to put us in that area.  We have a lot of wood boxes and wood sheds and he didn't want us going to the wrong place).  It turns out he was going to the West Side for some milk and (like many of us) didn't bring his phone with him.  On the way he couldn't help but see the orange glow.  So that's why he returned to get his phone and tell the closest people what was going on.

While Jon and I hurried over to the Fire Barn to get the fire trucks out Petie Brown was notified and she started calling every staff man at camp.  The trucks all started up great (once I found the choke in mine), which is a blessing because the equipment is old.  Jon left with the Fire Bus (carrying turnout gear and much of the fireman equipment we use), then I followed with the fire truck.  Jeremy Linsley was right on my tail with the water truck.  It was probably one of the fastest responses I've seen us perform. 

Upon entering the Maintenance Yard it was awesome.  Not in the good way, but in the way you kind of look on the fire in awe.  Flames to the treetops.  Wow.  This is when I realized it was the wood shed and it was really quite a relief.  A wood shed doesn't have any people in it.  No valuables.  Just wood.  This means that unless it suddenly spreads, no one would be in harms way for this fire.  It was safe for the moment. 

We also lost a wood box we use to transport wood.  Here's the frame of the new one.

To try and keep it safe we started unraveling hose, preparing to wet down the area and keep the fire from spreading.  The men took turns spraying down the couple trees in the immediate area, the rest of the lumber and the fire itself.  I really think it would have been harder to keep it contained, but the tin roof had collapsed on it, smothering it to some degree while preventing embers from flying all over the place.  While some folks were hosing the fire down, several of us were moving equipment away in case the fire spread.

Honestly, that is pretty much it for our response to the fire.  The Fairview Fire Department showed up and helped us contain it.  I actually left to go to the basketball game with some of the Ford's and we made tip off at about 7:30 pm.  It was decided that we'd let the fire burn itself out rather than attempting to put it out.  This was nice because then the fire pretty much cleans itself up for us.  I returned for my shift watching the fire at 3am.  Titus Brown joined me and we spent the morning pushing back the ashes and isolated chunks of wood.  Just trying to make it all burn down low, while recovering nails, screws and some other miscellaneous pieces of metal from the fire. 

Now for the cause.  We don't know for absolute sure, but in all likely hood it was our own brush fire.  On Monday we had been burning scrappy brush in the morning and stretching up until about 2pm.  When doing this we come and go a lot, keeping an eye on it when we're there.  Well the last guys to take a look at the fire saw it puffing a little bit of smoke at 4pm and 5:15pm. 

The new wood box completed and filled.

People have questioned why the burn pit is so close to our fire wood, and it's a legitimate question.  In my opinion, there are few better spots for the burn pit.  It's about as far away from the thick woods as you can get, and the closest building was the wood shed.  I think of the other buildings we could have lost and I personally prefer the wood shed over any other building of this size.  (Too bad it couldn't just be the Hillbilly Porch!).

Another question I've heard a lot of is how wood did we lose?  How much money in heating?  The answer is arguable a little bit.  My guess is that it was something near 35 cords of wood (it depends on the math).  Whatever the exact number, it was a lot of wood.  About 90% of this wood was used on our boiler that heats the East Side Dining Hall.  Very little was used in regular fireplaces such as the West Side Dining Hall, or chapels.  We won't spend extra on heating though, cause we still have time to cut more wood and keep the boiler stocked. 

What we didn't lose is the hours of service from Engineers.  The high school guys that cut wood.  It's a perfect example of what makes it through a fire and what doesn't.  The work they did is still work done to the glory of God.  And we'll have to do it all over again, but still to His glory.

So now we'll be out cutting a lot of wood.  We've already finished a new box for transporting wood (I scattered pictures above to break up the paragraphs), and camp purchased a wood splitter to help us prepare for the Winter.  Mike Alchin has spent most of the week out in the woods cutting down the dead trees around camp, getting ready to chop it up and burn it.  The last two Winters I spent a lot of time in Crosscut, cleaning when I could.  Now it'll be cutting wood and cleaning most of the time.

If you made it this far then good job!  I've seen 4 fires here at camp, and I've been partially responsible for 3 of them (1- Warming hut: Started the wood stove and the chimney caught on fire. 2- Pine Cabin: I was cleaning and one of the fluorescent light bulbs malfunctioned, catching on fire. 3- Wood Shed: Spent most of the day tending the brush pit).   So hopefully that's it for a while!  Thanks for sticking with me.

The Second Annual Camp Barakel Fun Run

I don't get into as many sports as I like around here, but this weekend was the big fun run.  The few crazy joggers at camp run 6 miles from Fairview to the office.  This year I joined Dave Douglas and Dan Haines on the frosty, rainy run.  I finished at 51 minutes, and I'm not sure what that means.  It was a lot of fun though and I love getting out and being active.  Back to the work week though.

This week the work had a little bit of variation.  The freezer and cooler started out the week pretty well gutted and ended the week with new tile and glassboard around all the walls that we can do so far.  Some of the walls will have to wait for the new insulation to be sprayed in before we can close them off.  Again, the whole goal is to get some air tight insulation that will help to keep moisture out of the walls.

Crisp and clean looking new glassboard.

We're approaching a time crunch because the retreats are coming up at the start of January.  That means we need to try and get everything back together as soon as we can so that the cooks can get their freezer and cooler stocked.  So Dan Haines is plugging away at the tile and I got in on some of that.  We used a pink membrane between the cement board and the tile to help prevent cracking and leaking.  In the midst of the tiling we also had to rip off some of the siding to give the insulation guy access inside the wall.  So now the back side of the dining hall looks a little funny with a large chunk of wall ripped off.

It looks like Dan's throwing up pepto bismol.

New access to the freezer and cooler.

Brad Smith came up on Thursday afternoon and he helped out with some tree cutting and brush cleanup on Friday.  We put some bricks in my truck to help with the slick roads. After that we took the Skytrak out onto the ski trails to push down and clean up a tree that has been hanging over the trail for quite a while.  Then we watched Mike Alchin and his friend work on a tree that was hanging over Arrowhead Lodge.  They had all the gadgets to help keep the tree off of the roof.  So Brad and I helped to clean up the brush as they took down pieces of the tree.

Mike Alchin and his fancy ropes.

Full extension on the Skytrak.

It was a productive week.  All the tile was finished and Dan's working on the grout now.  Now it's just a matter of the insulation guy filling up the walls and coming through to button everything up.  It was a fun weekend with Brad up here and the Fun Run.  We also joined in on the VIP party at the hardware store.  It's the big event of the town and everyone comes out to go from store to store.  Weeks are flying by and we're trying to push through these projects.