Week 2 Recap

Here's a quick look back at week 2.  I'll say it wasn't as nuts as week 1 but it had its share of craziness.

Sunday check in went well.  Here's me and my partner.  I think we make the greatest team.

Maybe I was wrong about this week not being crazy.  Monday was nuts.  I can't put my finger on it but Monday morning was a circus.  Answering tons of radio calls, bringing in horses, running between barns to gather up saddles.....and all before 9 am.  Then the kids arrived and we were mostly on our way.  Lake village horsemanship was bursting at the seams with 21 campers over 3 clinics and equestrian camp has been over capacity each week as well.  But we found all the horses needed and everyone got a good ride in.  Monday afternoon brought the medieval games, vaulting, race relay, and clipping and braiding clinics.  Nothing too exciting happened that afternoon.  After a nice dinner, Sara ran me to Delphi to drop off my truck at Dick Kreigs to explore the mystery of why doesn't my truck stay running.  As we stopped by my house to grab her car and my truck, I walked around the corner of my garage and I encountered the above pictured creature.  For the record....this is NOT okay with me.  No, no, not okay. It's a 6 ft rat snake who passively looked at me and slowly slithered BACK UNDER my house.  After I yelled and ran back towards the front of the house and told Sara that there was a very unwanted creature at my door, she ran in to grab a broom and I stood behind her watching it slither away.  For the record again....this is not okay.  I hate snakes.  They are just wrong and unnatural.  And knowing that mice can get into my house through the cracks, my mind reasons that a snake could just as easily.  I keep seeing this snake wherever I go.  Not cool.  But I settle down a bit and we head into town and I drop off my truck.  When I get back, I find Amie hooking up the mini-ponies to the cart and I spend the next several hours helping with that.  Unfortunately, my phone met it's eventual doom that night too when Amie accidentally dropped it on the road, causing the screen to shatter inside its case.  It's still usable, but not for much.  Calls are fine.  Thankfully I had bought a warranty on it but the downside is that I have to drive to Indy to the Apple Store for a new phone.  That's not going to happen till Tuesday.  But all it'll take is a $50 deductible.  Not too shabby.

Tuesday had an uneventful trail ride followed by a normal morning of lessons.  Tuesday afternoon found me finishing chores here and there,  running to Delphi to get Amie an unsweetened ice tea, and riding Gus and Latigo, two newer horses at camp.  I ran to Monticello for a much needed Walmart run and to pick up Amie's kids.  Tuesday night I helped load up the round pen and consequently unload it in Brookston with Amie and then it was off to bed.

Wednesday's trail ride had me taking out Latigo on the ride and he's a good boy but he sets a record setting pace so I'm always having to check him back so we don't cruise too much.  Lessons take me through the morning and after a rushed lunch so that I could put out round bales in all fields before Sara, Rachel, and I took off to Lebanon for a Nancy lesson.  By the time we were back by 10:30 pm, I'd put in a 14.5 hour day and I was beat.  Oh yes, one more trail ride in the morning.  I can do it!



 Thursday is always a bit rougher to get out the door on time as this is the day Iowa goes on their trail ride.  They are the youngest EQ cabin and this week, they were true to their age. We finally get out the door and the entire ride they are screaming, "This is so scary" while laughing.  At the end they were saying, "That was awesome!"  Mission accomplished.  Three more safe trail rides.  Lessons involved my pirates vs ninjas game and a little bit of jumping on the cross country course.  The afternoon brought driving a pair of ponies, mounted trail obstacles zombie apocalypse style, bareback, and bathing.  It was quite epic.  I'll let the pictures show.

Donica in Zombie 

Mo and Me

So there you have it.  Our week mostly in a nutshell.  Friday was the day of testing for the campers and for the most part they all did fairly well.  It's also a good chance for me to see if the instructors are doing their job in teaching the kids the material.  Our kids mostly escaped the "crud" (stomach flu) that has hit a few cabins this week.  Friday afternoon was catch up on chores and I started to grade some tests.  At the end of the week, I said goodbye to a great camper, Mo, who had won Character Counts again and was just the true embodiment of the "I am Third" motto.  Grace and elegance in an awesome loving package.  I told her I expected to see her again in a blue shirt and purple bolo.  See ya later Mo!  Theme dinner was disco night and the horse parade saw 4 horsemanship counselors getting the chance to ride.  Another appearance onstage to present awards and we were off to finish certificate and tests.  In bed by midnight and up again Saturday to say good bye to the campers.  I left work about 2 pm to head to West Lafayette to the AT&T store to see what they could do for my phone (from there I was told about the Apple store) and then off to Reagan's softball game (they won!) with the Gleasons, Forrest, and some other counselors.  Amie and Ben headed off to a work party and Lynne, Forrest, the kids, and I (and counselors) went to Chinese and to see the movie Brave.  Good cute movie.  I took the kids home and off to bed they went while I continued to work on postcards.  To home I went and sleep in I did on Sunday.  I had to drag myself out of bed because I figured I shouldn't be getting up right before I had to go to work (12:30 pm).  And now it's on to week 3!

It's going to be a hot week 3 but we're looking to make it awesome.  Until then......

Week 1 Summer Camp Adventures

Week 1 is over.  As usual, week one strung together an interesting list of events.  But to start us off, my grape jelly jar lid had a message for me the day before the kids came.....SMILE!  

Let's start at the beginning. Sunday was check-in and the staff meeting held lots of nervous, unsure faces of counselors who were overwhelmed with the amount of information they were supposed to remember and the responsibility of caring for 10 other children. As I told my counselors, we'll just take it all day by day and they only had to worry about the day they were on. After 9 years of this, it's much less nerve wracking but there is still lots of anticipation. This summer, we were lacking an upper level english instructor so I was wondering how much I'd be teaching this summer. I love teaching but it also means that there are less chores being done in the morning. And it would be a challenge, a big challenge, to still please the kids even if we didn't jump as much as they would probably like. I have a lot to offer about bettering your body position in the saddle so that you can go home and make any horse listen and look good. As I look at the roster for the week, I knew I'd be in for some heavy duty teaching.  But I knew the girls so I knew it'd also be fun.  These kids who ride at home don't necessarily come for the level of instruction (as they get upper level teaching at home) but for the chance to try something different.  Where else can they vault, drive ponies, navigate from toad stool to toad stool, and compete in medieval games?  Camp T....that's where! By the time Sunday evening rolled around, campers and counselors were tucked in for their first night at camp and we were finishing up schedules.  Monday morning had an early start with me taking the tractor up to the EC to groom Rachel's horsemanship arena sand a bit.  An hour later and I was off and running to bring in and feed the horses.  It was a little hectic as we were trying to work 2 program schedules into one barn but we're figuring (and still figuring) it out.  At 9:30, 35 campers were off and running in the program.  Grooming and tacking up then the groups split off and the barn was quiet....for a little bit.  Monday afternoon brought vaulting, medieval games, clipping and braiding, and race relay clinics which went off without much of a hitch.  The evening saw me walking a horse up to the EC then consequently walking myself back down (that's from one end of camp to another, mostly) then finishing up a few chores here and there.  Steven, Amie, and I decided that 9:00 at night was a great time to hang our country flags in the indoor arena to showcase the countries our equestrian counselors have come from.  Those countries include Brazil, South Africa, Wales, England, Australia, and New Zealand.  It was a comical sight watching us lug the huge ladder all around the arena and many questions of, "Are you holding onto the ladder?"  "Yeah, yeah, I got it."  The result was fantastic.  I love the flags!!  

Tuesday began with an early morning trail ride through the Oak Forest with Cayuga.  It means getting to the barn just a bit after 6 am, running in the herd, and getting the assigned horses in by 7 am.  From there, the kids arrive and tack up and we are hopefully out the door by 7:45 on our 45 minute trail ride down into the valley of Ghost Creek then up the challenging hill out of the valley. It's quiet, it's scenic, and it's a fun ride.  It's breakfast at the barn when we get back and soon after the other two cabins show up to begin lessons.  Lessons go on as scheduled and after lunch I decide that I needed to trim some parts of the trail ride trail and take care of some poison ivy (thank goodness I don't react).  So Moe and I headed out for a pruning and schooling ride (Moe needs more manners).  I get back and decide to ride Anthony, a younger horse who just needs more miles.  He's been pretty quiet standing on the hitching rail so I saddled him up and took him to the North Arena.  I wasn't on him for 5 steps when he came to a halt, bronced once (stayed on and I grabbed one rein and started to pull his head around), bronced twice (losing balance and now starting to face the opposite way), and on the third bronc, I decide to just screw it and bale.  Now I would not have been hurt at all if I had hit my inside thigh on the horn during one of the broncs and if I hadn't been wearing my camp radio on my hip.  I landed on the same hip as my radio and then tucked and rolled away and came up to a sitting position in time to watch him bronc about 2 more times around the arena.  With the wind taken completely out of my sails for the day (it left quite the bruise-see pictures), I lunged him then decided that no one else needed to be ridden for the day and I just needed to do some chores and I wanted to be left to myself.  After Sara and Amie came home, I consoled myself with the super awesome kitties.  


Diary of a bruise.  Day one and day 6.  Goes into my personal record books for biggest bruise ever!  ;-)

Day 1

Day 6

Toadstools!

Wednesday was a pretty ordinary day. In the afternoon, I built the "toad stools" for our mounted trail obstacle course. I moved the tires into position with the tractor, scooped up dirt with the bucket, then hand shoveled loads upon loads of road gravel into the tires to pack them down tight. It was back breaking work but the end result was great. Here's a few pictures of some steeds going over my handiwork. As I was getting off of work on Wednesday, I went by the TLC and looked across the field to see the old barn across the road completely engulfed in flames, seeing a lot of frame work. Like a scene straight out of the movies, this barn was all ablaze, black smoke rolling, not a single piece left untouched. It's been so super dry here that grass fires are a very real possibility. After I pulled into the equestrian center driveway, I heard a crash and knew it was the barn collapsing. Now just 10 minutes earlier, I had passed by and the barn was not on fire. With the dry windy conditions, fire would very quickly become out of the control. The Delphi fire department did a fantastic job containing the fire, using lots of water from the river. Amie picked me up soon after the barn caught on fire (my truck wouldn't start) and we headed in to watch Gavin's tourney game.  This team was so "bad news bears" compared to all the other teams.  They had won one game all season and had usually been beaten very badly.  It all came together (almost) that night.  They held a two run lead for two innings (I think) against the best team in the league of four teams.  They got outs at bases, strike outs at plates, and except for some bad base running, did an awesome job.  They ended up losing in a heartbreaker, by 1 run, but still worthy of a Dairy Queen run.  Great job Cardinals!

Thursday started out great for about half an hour.  By 7 am, I was looking for my Iowa Blazer cabin who were late for their early morning trail ride, by no fault of their own.  We finally get out the door and on our ride.  Thursday was the first day for rocketry to shoot off their rockets.  Our first concern was the horsemanship horses and them being scared by the rockets shooting up.  A lot of our focus that morning was on making sure everyone stayed safe during both clinics.  Obviously, it's been very very dry and hot and our pastures have dried up to nothing.  The one thing that no one predicted was that a rocket would set the pasture on fire.  I was just ending my class when Rachel came running up to the arena saying, "No one's dead but I need the radio."  What?  I took off out of the arena and she kept repeating that there was a grass fire.  That inspired fear and dread into me because it was hot, it was windy, and it was dry.  As I rounded the corner and saw the flames in the pasture, my heart dropped.  I yelled into the radio for someone to call the fire department (there was already a lot of radio chatter about the fire as the lake folks were trying to find help).  Through a string of very fortunate events, Keith just so happened to have just gotten back from an appointment in town and had decided to not stay for an open house in town and we had invested in a water truck for this very reason and that said water truck was ready and full of water.  He brought up the truck along with some "beaters" to stomp out the fire and with 15-20 minutes or so of the spark of the rocket, we had it mostly out.  But in 10 minutes, it spread this much (and I can't believe it didn't spread more):    


So Thursday didn't exactly go as planned and by the time my adrenaline wore off, I was exhausted after the week I'd just had.  Friday was coming.  Usually a late night but it was the first closing campfire of the season so I was looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, due to a game, Amie didn't join me for the first horse parade but Rachel stepped in.  I'll have to make sure that Amie does it at some point with me.  A late night of grading tests (till 2 am) and I was finally in bed and ready for the first check out of the season.  I worked till 3 pm, cleaned the house, went over to Amie's to watch her kids while they went to play softball, then had Gavin and Braydn spend the night.  While they sort of slept in, it wasn't a restful sleep for me.  They have a bad habit of sneaking up to my bed whenever I've had to watch them overnight before and then I'd swear that they'd just watch you till you woke up.  So it wasn't the most deep sleep but it was fun to just have the boys around.  After laying around most of Sunday morning, it was back to the staff meeting and the start of week 2.  One down, nine to go!

And So It Begins....

Here we sit, on the precipice of summer camp.  In just 38 hours the campers will be making the turn off of Springboro Rd to Tecumseh Bend Rd and then down the hill into camp.  I just completed two straight weeks of staff training with no break.  For the most part, I feel very ready.  Before those two weeks were two straight weeks of prep.  Prep included mowing, arena cultivating, riding, tack fitting, tack room cleaning, lots of ordering, updating schedules, adding new twists to familiar games and activities plus keeping up with the regular chores of feeding, cleaning the mini-farm, and working weekend trail rides.  Whew!  Then there were winter and spring time brain storm sessions and post card writing.  All in all, everything we do leads up to this one point.....the start of summer camp.  A 9 week circus!  Yes there was sweat, frustration, tears, and downright exhaustion.  There are times when you wonder why you do it.  Why do you give up your summers, vacations, and time for yourself to work yourself ragged, all for someone else?  That's it.  We don't do this for ourselves, we do it for God and for the kids.  We are here to be instruments of His mission, to show His love, and to be a living Bible for others to come to know God.  While we only have a week with most of these kids, this will be a week that they will never forget.  Some will come here and find someone who will listen to them, love them, and care about them like no one else around them has ever done.  Sure they come from good families, but now they have an adult, a cool adult, listening to them and caring about their opinions.  Do not underestimate the power that this can have in a young person's life.  I think that this song encompasses what a lot of our mission is about.  Sidewalk Prophets-Live Like That

This Friday morning, Amie and I (along with several of those in leadership positions for camp) participated in a chapel.  Staff training started with a viewing of the Butterfly Circus in an attempt to show that they, as counselors, were the ring masters and are there to help the kids have a "butterfly" moment.  Their "aha" moment.  A moment where they were transformed.  They wanted to end with a chapel were folks were up on stage with a "cardboard testimony".  The "before" on one side then flipping it over to show the "after" on the other.  I had to think long and hard as to what my camp butterfly moment was going to be.  Turns out, my moment came in my first year at camp. After I came to camp, I finally felt the freedom to be me, no matter how "not normal" that was.  Not that I wasn't being me before, but camp changed me on the inside and I wasn't afraid that I'd be judged for being me, a new me.  You can't put people in a box, religion in a box, or God in a box.  He's way too big for that.  There were several people who gave their silent cardboard testimony and the amount of raw emotion in the room was amazing.  Words weren't needed at the time.  It was time to move on from staff trainings, being taught how make schedules, teach a clinic, run trading post, organize a chapel, handle the kids, give devotions, do a lost swimmer drill, rules and regulations, and go on sleep outs and cook outs, and just get those kids here.  These counselors will undoubtedly experience an "aha" moment in their 9+ weeks here and those kids will remember this experience forever.  Pray daily and often for strength, wisdom, and endurance.  Sleep when you can.  Find God in all the little moments.  Here we go.....Summer Camp 2012!

Man Behind the Curtain

So I've been struggling with my thoughts lately.  Yep, sometimes Satan's whispering rattles me a little bit.  He likes to plant those seeds of doubt and then I let myself water them.  So maybe writing it out will make me feel better.  There are times where I feel like the man behind the curtain.  I'm working hard, doing everything behind the scenes to make my little part of camp work, doing tasks that others may not even notice when they are done but will notice if they aren't.  I'm okay with this.  I don't look for the limelight.  But Satan likes to plant seeds of, "No one appreciates you," "They take you for granted and use you," and "You're just the grinning lachey, doing their bidding without a complaint."  And then I water those and let those thoughts grow until I believe them.  You start to notice little things and possible slights and that only helps those thoughts grow.  I need to put some weed killer on those thoughts.  Still working on that.  Hoping that I can push those thoughts aside and replace them with true thoughts.  I don't mind working hard and not being in the limelight, I'd just like to know, every once in a while, that it's appreciated.  And to have those words come from those around me would be a nail in the coffin of those thoughts.  Then I remind myself that I don't do what I do for the praise of men, no matter how much I want that, but to glorify God.  If I did what I could to the best of my abilities and glorified Him through it, that should be all that matters....I just have to keep telling my thoughts that.

It's All for a Reason

It's been a whole 3 weeks of preparation, little sleep, and late nights of working.....regular staff training is upon us.  We just completed a week of equestrian staff training that saw dusty arenas, blazing hot temperatures then finally a cool down and a bit of rain.  I met 6 brand new equestrian counselors who arrived on Sunday unsure about their new adventure.  I understand exactly where they are coming from.  Nine years ago, I arrived at camp completely unsure about the place and environment I was putting myself into.  This place was foreign, the closeness of everyone to one another, and the environment was friendly....almost too friendly it seemed?  Not too friendly, just the right amount.  These people weren't fake or putting on a front.  This was the way that life should be and how people should act.  Within a few hours or days, this place started to feel like home.  I wasn't sure if I could teach these kids but I knew I had staff behind me supporting me.  My staff was brought to camp this summer for a reason.  Hiring was a little abnormal with lots of declines but it was all His plan.  Every one of them was brought to camp for one reason or another and while they feel nervous, unconfident, and unsure....they will be okay.  I know they will be okay. I won't put them in a situation where they will fail and I will support them.  They'll be okay.  We'll be okay.  As I told them yesterday, if you love God with all your heart, sole, and mind and love those campers....then everything else falls into place.  It will.

So now we embark into regular staff training.  This will be a week filled with trail rides, preparation for the summer (pesky details), and chores.  We have an awesome dream team for a barn staff with Rachel, Karissa, Steven, and Sarah (and Sara W. too!) and I believe there's so much potential for the summer.  After a day of some relaxing and some work, tonight we will meet the staff and then we are off and running with a full weekend of guests riding, kidney camp, and training.  I'm ready....mostly.  :-)

Here's a few pictures of the adventures of the week....