A Six Foot Dove Mobile, An Oversized Foam Cowboy Hat, and Three Month Old Animal Poo!

So a lot of you have been asking what exactly I do at my new job....well, the title of this blog says it all! I am having a great time here at Koinonia doing just about anything and everything the camp needs done. So.....

A Six Foot Dove Mobile. This past week we had two former counselors (as in early 80's counselors) come in to hang a six foot mobile of a dove in one of our outdoor chapels. Unfortunately it was a pretty dreary and rainy week and so when it came time to hang the steel wire from the trees where it comes down from, Eric (the artist) was sitting 35 feet up in a tree (the very wet and slippery tree) whilst trying to cinch things, etc. We had him hooked up to some climbing rope and apparatii (it should be apparatuses, but I like apparatii better!), but it definitely wasn't regulation per se. The dove is great, and what is even greater is that its' creator didn't fall out of a tree in its' making!

An Oversized Foam Cowboy Hat...is a prize I won at the Tri-State ACA (American Camping Association) conference we went to in Atlantic City! I went to some great sessions (and some pretty crappy ones too!), ate a lot of free ice cream (got to love exhibit halls), and realized that if I never went back to Atlantic City again, I would be very okay with that. Let's put it this way, if you are someone who can stay in a hotel/casino, walk the boardwalk a few times, pay HUGE amounts of money for food, and ignore the rest of AC (which is a rather impoverished city), than you would have a great time! To me, it just feels like they ruined perfectly good ocean-front! But it was a nice break from camp and a good chance to get to know my co-workers a bit better. :)

And Finally....Three Month Old Animal Poo. This past week I cleaned out the barn. The animals left in December. It is now late March. Hmmmm. Let's put it this way, at least it's nice and cold in those three particular months otherwise the poo could have been a lot ickier to shovel off the ground! Koinonia has a farm (goats, pigs, sheep, chickens only....they used to have cows but they got really good at escaping!) that operates from about April until December. A farmer comes and brings us younger animals which we feed and raise until he takes them back in December. After asking a few of my fellow co-workers, no one is really sure EXACTLY why we have said animals, but I think it's kind of nice. (I probably won't be thinking that as much when the animals come back and we have to start doing farm chores in the morning!) I have one dilemma though...there are also chickens. I will have to feed said chickens...for anyone who knows me or has seen me react when a bird gets to close, you understand the problem. Although someone mentioned that there are plenty of things around here that would eat chickens...maybe if I just "happened" to leave the coop open.......

So, those are just a few of my Koinonia adventures thus far. As for what I do the rest of the time, in the past few weeks I have planned a 3-6th grade retreat, helped turn over the conference center (read: made a LOT of beds), washed many a dish, played broomball with high-school students on our frozen pond, only fallen once (which is pretty good for how crazy icy it is!), helped prepare a 4,000 piece mailing, split wood (thank God not by hand), hosted retreating groups on camp during the weekends, and the list goes on....

As per the saving of the world (which of course always continues)...I'm going with the farm theme. We shall take a trip to "God's global barnyard..."

http://www.elca.org/hunger/stories/barnyard.html#top

I think I'll leave this one a mystery...go check it out!!!

Peace to you all...and HAPPY EASTER.

P.S. If you have any good strategies for dealing with rattlesnakes or black bears let me know....apparently I'm going to need them!