2009 MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND AT LAKETRAILS BASE CAMP
By Jack Conway
May 22, 2009: F 18 people (and two dogs) on the islet. Wade worked on the Laundry/Shower hot water heater, the last item needed on the water system. Wade and I scoped out the work tasks for today since our volunteer crew will begin arriving soon. Tom and Cheryl Vander-Heyden were the first to arrive around 11:00 AM in the light rain. The Millers (Glenn, Joe, and friend, John Hopper, and also Janelle Sietsma (late 70s guide) came about 2:00 PM. Mark Lindell with Tim, Brandt and Brian and brother in law, Todd Barnes, with son, Carter, arrived about 5.00 PM. Finally about 6:00 PM Deb McGarry, Pam Farmer with Jacob, Lydia and the singing Buster boated in about 6:00 PM. Wade, Tom, and Cheryl worked on the Rockhopper, lawn mowers, the Honda boat motor, the water system to the old Laundry, and on other Shop stuff.
May 23, 2009: Saturday 18 people on the islet. Joe Miller, John Popper and Jacob Farmer worked on wood chipping all the tree slash from our tree work last weekend, did some lumber stacking, and cleared all the slash except for the piles at Cokes and from around Herolds. These guys also helped to tear down the Fire Pit hardware wire and poles. Lois would like to plant a tree in the middle of the old Fire Pit. We then hauled all the downed wire mesh and fencing to the Dock Shack to bring to the recycle center, and then stored most of the poles, rebar and pipe. Wade and Mark and Todd worked on leveling buildings such as Noesens that always seems to be sinking into the nearby swamp, leveled the Noesen’s staff porch and outside porch, cleaned some of furniture—they found a whole dresser drawer full of a mouse winter apartment house), leveled the two porches leading into the Palace, and leveled the Noble House john ramp. Glenn Miller spent the day in the Pump House working on leaks, the wiring, getting rid of broken parts, and reworking some of the wiring. Pam, Deb, Janelle and Lydia cleaned and disinfected the kitchen, pantry and KP areas and all kitchen utensils, plates, stainless, etc. Tom and Cheryl redesigned the interior of an old outhouse by the Shop into a Gas Shed, worked on the Palace wiring—and while doing this discovered another heavy duty mouse winter condo in the breaker box. We needed to turn off all the power to remove the mess. Todd’s Carter and Mark’s boys—Tim, Brandt and Brian—worked on the johns, cleaned the Lodge windows using the Genie, whcked some weeds, and mowed the lawns in the late afternoon.
May 24, 2009: Su 18 people on the island. Wade, Tom and Cheryl moved the web site camera from Lodge to the Chart House and wired it for power, and getting it up on the web after such a long absence over this winter. Take a look at the great new live view of camp on our website—new view every ten seconds! Wade used a barrel to construct a composting device that we will be using this summer. Jack continued observing the Barn swallow’s persistent nesting tactics above our Lodge kitchen doors and installed the Barn swallow nesting devices (built by Mike Broderick) at both ends of the Lodge monitor to see if the swallows would make us of them. (Earlier this week Wade and Jack installed some plastic spikes above the Lodge kitchen doors to see if these would also induce the Barn swallows to build their mud nests elsewhere.) Tim, Brandt and Carter finished chipping the slash pile by Cokes and spreading the chips over some of the muddy portions on the footpaths by Cokes. Joe, John and Jacob cleaned all Chart House windows, inside and out—and these guys even got up on the roof to clean the outside upper windows. Deb, Pam, Janelle and their gang continued cleaning of Lodge KP area and the large eating room. Jack trimmed the spreading edges of the cherry tree patch just west of the Lodge. The Mark and Tim and others did a bang-up job of leveling the Wheelhouse (now tilting some six inches to the east) and firmed up the deck, bridge and walkways leading to the Wheelhouse. They also replaced and painted the rotting facing board on the foundation of John’s Villa and leveled the building. Glenn continued to work on fixing and doing the final clean up of the Pump House. Over this whole weekend, Deb McGarry, Pam and Lydia Farmer, and Janelle Sietsma not only prepared wonderful meals throughout the weekend which made for a good time in the Lodge, but worked long and hard to get the Lodge kitchen, pantry and KP area into tip-top shape. Also, Deb and Pam purchased and arranged for the purchase and transport of all the weekend food to camp. And wonder of wonders, Janelle Sietsma, after working real hard along with Deb, Pam and Lydia in the Lodge kitchen, took it upon herself, on Sunday afternoon to single handedly clean—and I mean CLEAN!—the Laundry and Shower Building. The entire place just glowed with clean! Wade did a great job of organizing and running the weekend cleanup activities and keeping everyone up to speed on what progress we were making. Jack completed the cleanup of the EcoRoom, and made a poster for the camper and staff that deal with the Emerald Ash Borer and the Gypsy Moth—two invasive critters that are most likely spreading because of our national habit of hauling infested firewood. The Lindell and Barnes fishing expeditions led to some great fish meals during this weekend. (Be sure to take a look at our website see the great walleye that Tim Lindell caught.) He released this one, but the group had a bunch of others for us to feast on. Yum, Yum!! As a final note, all the usual birds—even the hummingbirds—have arrived on the island, and except for the swallows and geese, they were totally unaware of our existence since they are all nutty and frantic about mating, nesting and super-charged aerial acrobatics. And, of course, the relentless grackles literally kept following the swallows and warblers to their nests to snatch any early eggs (I found two broken robin eggs). Even though there are a lot of challenges out there for us all to face due to all our economic woes, this singing islet is alive and well and full of budding wonders.
May 25, 2009: Monday 1 person on the islet. Starting at 6:00 AM people were boating away from our docks to get to Young’s Bay before the coming rain hits. The light rain started around 7:00 AM, and everyone was gone by around 9:00 AM. Jack remains on the islet—an islet now ready and waiting for the return of the staff and campers.
A BIG THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO CAME TO CAMP THIS WEEKEND TO HELP CLEAN UP AND TO GET OUR GREAT CAMP READY FOR THE SUMMER SESSIONS FOR OUR CAMPERS!!!
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