Hair Cut

Andrew has been a boarding student at Holden this year. He has been a fantastic person to get to know and spend time with. Since Holden is such an accepting community, he decided to not cut his hair at all this year. As you can see he has wonderful curls.

The other day Andrew honored me with the request to be the one who cut his hair before he left. Tonight is the high school play and next weekend graduation. As you can see we had quite a gallery of onlookers with opinions.

He looks fantastic!!!!!!! (Note, the smiling young man behind the house; he douses me with a squirt gun as soon as I am finished.)

Holden Prom - Pride and Prejudice

Each year the Holden school holds its annual prom. This years theme was Pride and Prejudice, which in Holden's terms meant "Anything Goes". The Village Center was decorated and we all waited with excitement for the evening to begin.

Art looked dashing.

Dave and Mary Sather (Dave is the high school teacher here at Holden) were in full theme attire.
Olaf, our one and only kindergartner, took looked stunningly and took it all with his usual seriousness.

Here is the entire school posing for a picture.

Our business and public works directors had a blast.

As you can see, it was a rags to riches affair.

Lake Chelan

Lake Chelan is Holden's highway to the world. All that travels here is brought up on a boat on the lake. Many Holden staffers tend to sleep on the boat to pass the time, but we tend to forget how beautiful this gateway lake to the Cascades can be. Lake Chelan is a very clean lake; offering views deep into its rocky bottom. The clean green tint always looks so inviting for a swim but the lake is way too cold for swimming most of the year.

Our summer boat is the Lady 2, the largest boat on the lake, capable of carrying 350 passengers. The trip from Field's Point to Lucerne takes about 2.5 hours; offering tourists plenty of time to sit out on the decks and take pictures.

Along the shores, Lake Chelan has many summer cabins on its shores which are accessible only by boat. The Lady 2 can pull right up to the banks and drop off hikers or residents as needed. To get a ride out, all one needs to do is wave a flag and the boat will stop.

After about two hours on the boat we spy Domke Mountain up lake. Domke is the site of the forest fire two summers ago and also cradles a wonderful lake in its basin. Domke is a very popular fishing lake and a great spot for hikers.

My favorite part of the trip up lake is when we are finally ashore and the boat continues on towards Stehekin. The boat in the distance reminds me of how totally alone in the wilderness we are, with no way to leave or contact the outside world. This is the moment that makes me feel the strongest.

More Pugnatious Hummingbirds

I promise this is my last post about hummingbirds. They are the noisiest, most obnoxious birds I have ever seen. They are constantly fighting outside our window. The comotion is worst just before dark; when it is hard to take a good picture Right now I have about 40 of these rascals buzzing outside our window, making such a racket that I sometimes think they have broken through the screen and somehow gotten into our living room. They buzz just like bees and add a chirping to it. They threaten each other constantly with physical poking pushing. If we ever let the feeder go dry, they bang on the window for more. What will they do when we are out tomorrow?

Random Pictures

My new camera is here and I am still tweaking it to have pictures as I like them. We are mid-way into our third May Youth Weekend, with 220 high schoolers here. The sun is out and all is good

Utilities Coffee House

My new camera has not arrived yet and so I am using photos that Paul Haines, our public works director, took at last night's "Utilities Sponsored Event" coffeehouse. Our utilities people, see Marc, Nancy and Daniel below, put on the most fantastic and fun evenings for us all. Last night's coffeehouse was an affair to remember.

As soon as we entered Koinania, we were served cookies, coffee and punch. Each table had candles and tablecloths. After a period of chowing down and visiting the acts began. I can't begin to share the talent that this village has. We had juggling acts, original music sung, incredible violin playing and of course Art got in the act.

He and Paul H. did the funniest two man comedy act that I have ever seen and they did it in tuxedos.

Above, Annalisa, in her dress, is teaching us how to do this complicated Rugby play. I feel out of my chair laughing.

The final act was my favorite. I have discovered that I have a love for appalachian music. The three musicians above, Carol, Angela and Rolf, will forever have me in their audience. They are truly fantastic.

A Night in Lucerne - Part Three - Camping

What can I say? I am still in awe of where I am. We camped at Refrigerator Harbor and it was beautiful. For a reality check, please know that it is 38 degrees out and snowing right now. My camera broke after these shots, I will wait to post until my new one arrives.

A Night in Lucerne - Part Two - A Walk With 2 Deer

As I hunted for Morel mushrooms in the Domke Mt. burn area on Saturday, I suddenly looked up and two deer were on the rise ahead of me. All three of us were foraging for food; slowly working our way through the burnt trees.

The deer never ran away, they seemed totally comfortable with me and my presence. At times we were within ten feet of one another. We walked, moving slowly looking for our food. The three of us were together for about 30 minutes. Each of us aware and yet so at peace.

A yell from Art broke up our unit. Art was bouncing on a burnt log and spied me as I was working my way towards the road. He is so cute at times.

A Night in Lucerne - Part One - Morel Mushrooms

Art and I took a night away from the village and went down to Lucerne to camp with friends. Our plan was to spend the afternoon looking for Morel mushrooms. In 2007 there was a fire on and around Domke Mt, which is near Lucerne. Morels will grow in mass amounts the first few years after a fire. I know that last year many people went down with success and so we thought we would try. We found them in bunches on slopes in the burn area. This is what they look like in the ground.

This is my bag of mushrooms that I gathered in about two hours.

Art is sitting with most that we gathered during our trek. Mushroom hunting is addictive, you just can't stop, especially when there are ones to be found. When we got back to camp, we sauteed as many as we could and ate them with both dinner and breakfast and then we sent our portion home to Ellensburg with our friends.

A Typical Daily Schedule or Why I Don't Write

Up at 7am -- Art and I awake at the same time every day. We never over sleep winter or summer. We find this odd but this is where we begin our day. Holden is the only place I have lived where you can wake up, brush your teeth and be out the door within 5 minutes. No need to stoke the stove unless it is very cold out. No one is home in the morning.

8am Breakfast and Matins -- announcements begin, followed by Matins (brief morning worship). Art goes to his Ops meeting (Operations) and I go to work.

10:30 Coffee Break -- We all go back to the dining hall to grab a bite of delicious food. Often it is hot bread, brownies or bread pudding. Who can resist?

10:45 Bus Departure -- We all go out to say goodbye to those who are leaving us that day. During the winter this is the only bus but in the summer we do this twice a day.

Noon -- Lunch (no one starves at Holden) Lunch is usually hot soup, bread and salad.

12:45 The bus arrives with new guests -- Some of us go back to work after lunch while others hang out until the bus arrives. We all go out to greet the new guests and then unload the luggage and food from the bus. Holden depends upon the boat to bring up everything. All luggage and supplies are loaded onto the bus and once in the village, we make a human chain to unload it all. I have lifted more 50lb boxes here than ever care to again in my life.

1pm to 3pm Finish Work -- (Art works longer in the day because he gets 2 days off a week, while I only get one.

3pm - 5pm -- I get some quiet time to read emails, pay bills, do laundry and straighten up the house. Art often comes home for a brief nap. (We each have dish team once per week which means we report in at 4 and work till 6:30 or so.)

5pm Dinner -- More food. I have learned to like Kale

6pm to 7pm - Break before Vespers. In the winter I played cards with a group of young people but now that the road is clear and there is daylight, I have been taking walks.

7pm Vespers - A short worship service

In addition to this schedule we work in book discussions, sessions with speakers, gabo (a 2 hour garbage sorting), sacristan duty (setting up for worship), fire brigade and 1000 other things that come up. Next week I am leading discussion groups on the May Youth weekends.

Evenings -- Evenings vary with activities. We have movies, disscussion forums and twice weekly ice cream snack bar. Most evenings we take time to socialize with a few others. Our chalet has become a popular gathering place for people. We often have 15 - 20 people over for drinks, snacks and a ton of laughs. We are also trying to watch The West Wing on DVD, but we are only into season 3 now.

9pm - 10pm -- Bed time, reading and a good 8 to 9 hours of sleep. We work hard and play hard here. Sleep is rarely an issue.

Soon mother nature will keep us awake a bit more. The woodpeckers are beginning to wake us up a bit earlier than we wish. The bears tend to knock over things as they rummage through looking for food. The screech owl sometimes perches in the tree outside our chalet and the coyotes can really raise a ruckus in the dark. All of this is pure heaven to me. I love mountains and nature and the life that it brings. How will I ever go home?

Our personal letter writing time goes to my mother, Art's sisters and a few close friends. The blog is fun to do but also takes time and planning. I hope many of you understand when I can't write personal letters to keep you up todate. I have never been so busy in my life. God bless and thanks for your understanding.

May Youth Weekends

Each May, Holden hosts high school youth groups from churchs around Washington State. They come in droves, not knowing much about Holden but with a ton of enthusiasm. Holden has a tradtion of pulling pranks and jokes for these kids as they come into the village. One year it was blind bus drivers and another it was a human avalange blocking the road. This year 3 of us set up a bus driver coffee stand about 2 miles from the village. Each bus would stop and we would serve coffe to the bus driver. Joeseph was our bicycle powered coffer maker operattor. Each time the bus stopped, I would yell at him to work harder, work harder.

Humming Bird Wars

I sure hope you like Humming Birds because I may get a little obsessive this spring with posts about them. The birds in the mountains are very different than at home. Firstly, they are much closer to you every day. Robins and Juncos are comfortable just a foot or two away from people. Secondly, the birds behave so differently than at home. The Robins are aggressive and fight for food and places on the grass. Humming Birds are extremely territorial and are almost as thick as bees in some bushes. Today our feeder became a place of warfare.

One bird came in and upset the entire feeding community. From then on each bird tried to force the other birds away from the feeder.

One would fly in and two would fly off. The sound is exactly like giant bumble bees.

They became so nervous that they would not land at all to feed but stayed airborn while they drank the sugar water. My inexpensive camera did a fair job of capturing these fast moving creatures. Click on the image to get a bigger picture. Stay tuned for more.... Art says that there is a green one that gets them all worked up. PS... I found out that the green ones are the females. No wonder they are in a tizzy.

A Walk on an Old Trail and the First Village Bear

Art and I took a walk above Lake Chelan today on an old mining trail. It was beautiful and a nice break from the village.

When we got home we spotted our first bear behind the village. This guy is sleek an healthy looking. We had to chase him off, but not before I got a picture of him.