Hey all you good folks!
Please come and help clean up Nature Camp and get ready for the regular summer sessions. There are always loads of leaves to rake, brush to haul, and buildings and porches to sweep. If you have trouble with pollen, be sure to bring a dust mask or respirator. This seems to be an especially good year for oak pollen.
Please bring work gloves, sturdy shoes, garden rakes, leaf rakes, shovels, tarps to haul leaves, wheelbarrows or garden-way carts, and
dust masks to wear while sweeping the buildings. Most of these projects will be grunt work, but if there are enough of us, it will be easy and fun.
The main project for this spring is reshingling another section of the
LS roof. We finished perhaps a third of the roof surface last fall, and
we’ll tackle another section in 2 weeks. If you feel comfortable reshingling the LS roof, please bring ear protection, eye protection, gloves, hammers, flat bars, utility knives, chalk lines, staple guns, battery drills, electrical cords, 6-way plugs, dust masks or respirators if you have a problem with dust, and shoes that will keep you on the roof.
There is still some sheetrock work to be done around the electrical panels and some receptacles. If you have putty knives and have experience with mudding sheetrock, please bring along the tools. Perhaps if this is done early enough we can even prime and paint the patches.
The Nature Camp garden beds will need some help, so bring gardening gloves, trowels, shovels, or whatever else you think will be useful. There are always screens to fix. We need a person to be in charge of screens who is able to attend nearly all the Service Weekends. Please see me if you would like to volunteer for that position.
Flip and I will be gathering building materials on Friday afternoon 5/15/09. If you arrive at Camp and are looking for a project before we return, please start raking leaves and piling them beside the compost
pile behind the Cooks’ room, or hauling brush to the berm uphill from the Infirmary and at the end of the GBH.
Please bring what you can, but don’t worry if you don’t have any of the tools I mentioned. We share. If you bring any tools, it is a good idea to put your name on them. Eventually they will make their way back to you.
We always have a blast, no matter what the grunt work. NCF has adopted 608 above and below Nature Camp Trail. We’ll have a crew on litter patrol along that section of highway, so brightly colored clothing that
is easily spotted by motorists would be a good idea.
I plan to arrive about noon on Friday the 15th and leave about 3:00 pm on Sunday the 17th. We will stay in the Bunkhouses and use the T-houses, LS, and Kitchen. NCF will feed you lunch and dinner on Friday, 3 meals on Saturday, and breakfast and lunch on Sunday. In the evenings we play music and Saturday we might dance some contra dances if there is enough interest. Sound like fun? It is great fun. Please attend any or all that you can. If you can’t make it during the day, I hope you will at least come Saturday evening for dinner, music, and to visit.
The NCF website (www.naturecampfoundation.org) is really great. If you have a digital camera, please bring it along to share the fun with those ho are unable to attend. We’ll send the digital photos to Michaux and
she can put them on the website.
I hope to see a lot of you there.
Jim Brooks
NCF Service Committee Chair