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!