Spring Work Week

We just finished Spring Work week and I am so tired. Work week is a time when around 60 people come into the village to help us open up the buildings that have been closed all winter. We all work in two areas; either operations or housekeeping. There is a special day mid-week called Blitz Day, where we all become Mavericks and open up things like the pool hall, snack bar, take all the winter screens off the windows and restore the dining hall to summer status. Above is my crew that cleaned and opened up the snack bar.

Here is a team of women hauling bags of clean sheets and towels from one lodge to another. The work is not easy but everyone really enjoys the spirit and community of the week.

At the end of the week we have a feast meal with wine at the table. Several people dress up for this dinner. Here are a few who really looked elegant.

Here is a picture of my crew sitting on my back steps. These ladies did a lot of work cleaning and opening up all of the lodges. They all leave tomorrow and next weekend the village fills up with 200 high school students for the first of the May Youth Weekends.

Humming Birds

Oh this is better than Christmas! The Humming birds are at our feeder. Spring in the mountains brings out many different kinds of birds. We have owls each evening who "hoot" us to sleep each night. Juncos, Robins and Blue Jays cover the receding snow looking for seeds. Art was late for dinner last night because he watch the courtship of two Bald Eagles in flight over the village. But for me....... it is the Humming Birds that have me so excited. They sound like a very large bumble bee. Often there will be so many that you swat at them as you walk down the path. You forget that they are birds not pests. We put our feeder up yesterday and already they have found it. I have heard that once you start you need to keep the feeder filled and that they can drink up to a quart of this sugar water a day.

I knew the people who lived in our place last year and if you were very quiet and very still you can put your fingers around the feeder and they will land on your hand and drink. I am just so excited!! Expect more pictures from me; I just can't help myself.

Quick Updates

Spring Work week begins on Sunday and then we are off to the bigger and more magnificent Holden Village. Next week we will open up all of the lodges and chalets for guests and staff to fill. The snow is in rapid decline and the sound of ice axes and snow shovels are an every afternoon occurrence. The "melt" will take some time because we still have 38" of snow on the ground. We figure two feet of melt a week if the weather is warm. The mountains still have a lot of snow on them; with fresh snow falling in the higher elevations just yesterday.

All of this is leading to an invitation to come and visit Holden. The morel mushrooms are coming out down by the lake, the grass will soon be green and ready for reading and napping, and soon we will have snow free trails for hiking. We have 1/2 price days available until mid June, so put your thinking caps on, dream of mountains and come see us. We move back home the end of August, so try out something new. Holden offers an invitation to all to visit and worship.

The Amazing Angela Mietzke

Our Easter celebration decoration came from the hard work and incredible vision of just one woman, Angela Mietzke. Angela is our worship assistant and it is her job to add the "pretty touches" to our daily worship. The job never ends and the planning and ordering take huge effort to coordinate. This Easter we awoke to a giant daffodil turned upside down with bees flying in and out of the center.

All of this stunning decoration was done with the dying of material and carefully hanging it in Koinania to really give the affect of a Spring flower. The bees were so cute and were made of pine cones with yellow and black material wrapped around them. Angela has a vision of how things can be that most of us just never can perceive. She knows how to add color and texture, light and nature to make Holden the most beautiful worship space ever.

Easter Morning Pictures

Easter Vigil Baptisms

Last night we held a two hour Easter Vigil, which began with a bonfire and moved through biblical plays and then on to an Easter tradition that I had not experienced before; baptisms. Aubry, my seven month old chalet housemate, was baptised last night. Trevor, her dad is holding her while we waited for things to begin. Isn't she beautiful?

9 year old, Nyrie, was also baptised. She had her hair done in corn rows with a bright bow and crocheted flowers. Dave, her dad, also affirmed his baptism.

Our friend, Sarah, was Aubry's sponsor. The glow of candle light made everyone look just magical.

We ended our Easter vigil with cake and champagne afterwards. Holden is forever serving up some yummy treat for us to enjoy. Such a wonderful evening we all shared.

Earning Our Cookies

One of our co-workers has broken his ankle and had to have surgery on it last week. He has come back to the village on crutches and to a lot of very soft, mushy snow. It is not easy for him to get around and especially nasty to get up to his chalet. In soft snow it is possible to sink up to 3 feet in an area where just yesterday you stood securely.

To help him out we decided to do a group effort shoveling of the path up to his chalet. Several of us got out to do the work. Cookies were served and we had the job done in about 45 minutes.

This picture was taken by Steve Marks, one of the villages school teachers. He brought his kids out to help.

Stop Day - Part Two

I must add a post note to our wonderful Stop Day. Not everyone could go down to the lake for the fun. The village must always have fire brigade, medic, radio communication and utilities people ready to work at any time. As we pulled back into the village and stopped at the stop sign we noticed that there was a big note attached to the sign. It said, "We had more fun than you did!!" We then looked up the hill and spied this motley crew of people who had enjoyed their day in the village as much as we had. We all sat in the sun for awhile before breaking for a fantastic dinner of cod, artichokes, shish-kabobs, pizza and a wide variety of alcohol. We all had a fantastic day.

Stop Day Outing - To the Beach

We still have 3 plus feet of snow on the ground at Holden and so when a "stop day" was announced (a day off for everyone), several of us decided to head down to the lake for a day at Lucerne. Lake Chelan is still very low and so we called it our Beach Day.

We packed lunches and brought hotdogs and towels. Art drove the bus so we could spend a leisurely four hours down at the lake.

We walked a bit, read, chatted and then Art lit a fire and we roasted our hotdogs. If you know much about Holden, you will know that we don't get many of those in the village.

We had such a nice time just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful day. It was near 70 out with full sun. As we packed up to go, Art decided to perform a long standing Holden tradition; jumping into the 40 degree lake before our trip back up the mountain and into snow.

Winter's End is Near

A warm and very sunny 60 degrees today and even warmer tomorrow. Time to begin the big shovel out of the paths, walk ways and trails in the village. Here are a few Holden staffers (and Olaf and Eli) and shoveling off the Ark; Holden's main outdoor porch. Tomorrow is a stop day and many of us hope to go down to Lake Chelan at Lucerne and have a "beach day" with hotdogs and everything.

Mother Nature's April Fools Joke

We awoke this morning to a foot of fresh snow. Art and I both like to get out of bed and go stomp the village trails. Here is our Chalet this morning.

Art is heading down the road to shovel out the Hydro plant. We have so little power this Spring. We need this stuff to melt so the creek will rise and give us power.

We were told at dinner tonight that this April is the snowiest in 27 years and we are only 2 days into it. Winter total of 221 inches so far.