tales from the mountains

let's see, what have i been up to lately? justin and i went camping last weekend. nothing special, but it was nice to just relax. i caught one trout and had more fun playing with blue and buddy and just sitting around the campfire than anything else. it was great to be in the woods.

monday i began the grind known as "staff training" at camp. staff training, loosely translated, means "manual labor." we haven’t done any kind of training in 4 years. it takes a lot to get a camp that's been abandoned since july to be in working order again. it consists of a lot of mowing, weed eating, moving trees and limbs that have fallen, and getting the water and electricity going. this includes replacing blown fuses, fixing leaking pipes, and all other kinds of misc. junk. our staff usually consists of at least 20 people. this year, there are going to be about 8 or 9 of us. what's funny is we have gotten more done than we usually do with the larger staff. the younger staff usually likes to socialize more than work, and so those of us who would normally work harder are supervising and getting others to do the work. we've all been working ridiculously hard and independently doing the stuff that needs to get done. i'm worn out but it's really fulfilling to get so much done.

one of my best friends from middle school is working up there. he just got married, and he and his wife are amazing. it's great working with them, cause they're both such hard workers and catching up with someone you haven't seen in almost 10 years is a lot of fun. it's funny how people don't really change all that much. it's neat seeing the passions that people develop as they grow up. well, i'll say get older, cause i don't really want to grow up.

the most interesting story from the week was brought to us by coach levoy, the camp owner. he was up checking on his lake houses, and came to see us while we were checking on the boats. he said he would pay someone $50 to clean out his refrigerator. i figured it couldn't be that hard so i volunteered. he pulled out a huge wad of money, handed me two twenties and two fives. as he handed it to me he added "take a mask, because there's a dead beaver in there, and it's rotten." see, a beaver was building a house under one of our docks, so they trapped it and froze it and were going to take it to a taxidermist to add it to our nature center collection. well, the power bill didn't get paid, and thus the mess.

we worked as a team to clean it, somehow managing to not puke. i'll spare you the details, but it was gross. we took the money and went out to eat that night after long hot showers.

other than that, i'm pretty worn out from a lot of work. next week will be more hard work, then we get our first group the week of june 5th. it's katie's camp (blakely katie, not augusta katie or columbus katie) so it'll be good to see her again. their staff is a lot of fun, and they're in their 20s, so it's cool to see folks my age. they usually have a lot of special needs kids which i always manage to be drawn to.

i'm off to pay bills and watch tv, something i haven't done in over a week. i'm going to ignore dr. j's ridiculous number of e-mails until july. i shouldn't have to worry about school ‘til august, but i guess i'll worry about them then.