#TBT

For those of you “not in the know”, #TBT stands for “Throwback Thursdays”. We celebrate this day of the week with a re-telling of one of the classic breakfast club jokes from days gone by. Today was the “Coffin” joke…

“It was a dark and stormy night. A woman was walking back to her apartment when she heard a thump thump noise behind her. Looking back she sees a BIG BLACK CASKET standing up and hopping toward her. YIKES! She starts to run, the casket quickens its pace and stays with her. She gets to her apartment building and locks the front door behind her and runs up the stairs… the casket bursts through the door and starts up the stairs! She goes into her apartment and locks herself in the bathroom, looking for something to defend herself from the terrible thing. She is holding a bottle of cough medicine when the casket bursts through the door… she throws the bottle and it bursts on the casket… AND THE COFFIN STOPPED.”

Today we will enjoy TTS classes again, getting into the meat of the activities quickly. The girls are finding their way around camp without hesitation, the maps are not needed any longer. We know everyone in our cabin very well, know everyone at our dining hall table very well, know the girls in our classes a little bit, and recognize faces as we walk around camp. It is beginning to feel like home!

I will be checking out the garden/farm program area today. This brand new facility is located in my back yard! A chicken coop, a little rabbit barn, 12 raised beds as a garden, and 150 blueberry bushes. The raised beds are planted with melons, vegetables, berries, and herbs. Our house provides a wonderful place for this class to meet (the girls will use our kitchen, the porch, and our bathrooms) and the skills they learn will be significant. Marty Lopez is the department head: she is a former Greystone camper, counselor, and her daughter attends Main camp… she now teaches science in her hometown). It is SO CUTE seeing the girls work the garden and start their personal worm farms. The will learn all about composting and how to make a garden grow. Good fun (especially excited about the rabbits and chickens who are VERY FRIENDLY).

Greystone is making a major effort to go green this year. We have started a “zero waste initiative” in an effort to virtually eliminate our contribution to the land fill. Last summer we sent about two tons of trash to the land fill every day. This summer we hope to send only fifty pounds of trash every day! How do we do it? We separate all garbage into three basic categories:

• Compost (this we mix with the horse manure and compost at camp, using the compost to put on our planting beds and pastures).
• Recycling
• Land fill (very little can not be recycled or composted… wrappers and some plastic things are the biggest component).
  We also collect batteries (which we send to a separate recycler) and light bulbs.

Things I have learned:

• There is a learning curve… we don’t know what the definition of trash is!
• It is expensive (at least for us)… we bought compostable everything (much more expensive than plastic), replaced every trash can with color coded cans (hundreds of new specialty cans).
• It is good stewardship… as Christians we are called to be good caretakers of the earth. Camp will be more beautiful because of this effort, and I am glad not to be such a major customer at the land fill.

Tonight’s EP is Opening Vespers. A quiet, traditional, beautiful EP that has not changed over the decades. We will wear our whites, silently gather in the pavilion, hear the story of light and love, recite our verses, and light our candles. This program provides a book end to our Closing vespers in two weeks… it makes camp better to have this foundation laid, I absolutely love it. The beauty of the candle ceremony is impossible to describe.

Thank you for reading, all is well here. Camp is running smoothly and I see happy faces everywhere I look. The girls LOVE to have their picture taken and crowd around me after EP. We took a ton of pictures at the last two EP’s (trying to get multiple photos of every girl on stage led to about 1,800 photos from me alone last night). For my personal photo file, I will try to bring it down to a more manageable number of pictures today.

Have a Great Day!

JB

Breakfast: Pancakes and sausage (home made pancakes and locally made sausage with real maple syrup).

Lunch: Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches (we thin-slice the rib-eye ourselves… it is an amazing lunch)

Dinner: Chicken Enchiladas (one of the best dishes of the summer… loaded with shredded chicken).