Butterflies on the Ceiling

Paul Hinderlie, one of Holden's directors, announced the other night that he had lost his caterpillar collection. And now we have these butterflies hanging from the ceiling in the Village Center. There may be a connection here, do you think? This butterfly mobile is absolutely beautiful. We have some very creative people around who have all these good ideas and the skills to produce them. (No caterpillars were harmed, or even hatched, in the production of it.)

Holden's theme for this summer is "The Foolishness of God." We've been having fun with this theme proclaiming how God's foolishness is wiser that human wisdom (from 1 Corinthians). To prove all this we are continually acting like fools! (Not too different from any other time).

We have had some really good teaching staff the past two weeks and I have been trying to attend some of the sessions when I can find the time. The housing crunch is over for a few days. We have a lot of people coming in for Independence Day next week and that will bring another crunch time. July 4th is quite the celebration here. It will be the third year I have been here for it. But more about that next week.

Weekend in Review

This past weekend I took an "out" from the village and drove Holden friends, Larry and Gundula Houff to Seattle where we attended a graduation party for another Holden friend, Barbara Moreland. It was so good to see these former staffers again.

I spent two nights in Seattle with my friend, Chris McClure. It was such beautiful weather in the city over the weekend. It was sunny and the gardens were all blooming--it was like being in...well, like being in Seattle on a beautiful weekend.

I returned yesterday in the middle of work camp. We have hundreds of people in the village right now working on many projects, repairing, painting, moving stuff, etc. In fact we are somewhat overbooked as the board meeting starts on Friday and we don't have room for everyone. Some of the summer staff are having to move out of their rooms by Friday to make space for everyone. They will be housed with other staff or in tents. Everyone is pitching in to make this work out. It is only for six days now, but we have another crunch coming over July 4th. Holden is a real popular place this summer!

In an earlier blog entry I talked about changes. Well, my neighbor, Patty, leaves tomorrow. Her year term is up already. Wanda has already moved into one of the other rooms left vacant by the Lulay family and now Debi will be moving into Patty's room for the rest of her time here, which ends September 30. The Haines' have moved into the other rooms that the Lulays were occupying. Some of the displaced staff will be staying in the small apartment on the other end of the building, which was recently vacated by Carolyn who worked at the school this past year.

I, myself, have only a little over ten weeks left in these mountains. In six weeks I start training my replacement. I am starting to firm up my plans for doing some traveling and visiting people when I leave here. I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to stay as long as I have and I will always cherish my time here.

A Change in the Weather

Winter is over. It is June.
Coats and sweaters are stored away.
Summer clothes have been brought out.
Too soon! Too soon!
We want our coats and sweaters back.
The temperature has dropped.
It's cold!

Yes, the temperature has dropped. The mountain tops have new snow on them and we actually had some snow flakes in the air this morning. I have to say though, I prefer it to 95 degrees.

The Last Day of School

Traditionally the first day of school at Holden happens the day after Labor Day. I was remembering how this year there were actually three first days of school. The village had been evacuated last August because of a forest fire. When it was time for school to start, there were no students or teachers and only about 20 staff members in the village. So the first first day of school was held in a building in Chelan, set aside by the Chelan school district. After about 10 days, many of the staff, including the students and teachers were allowed back in the village. Here they had the second first day of school. However not all the students were here yet. The boarding students had not arrived, nor had a couple other students who had gone to Minnesota with their mother for the duration of the evacuation. So when they arrived, we celebrated the third first day of school. This was the traditional first day celebration with all kinds of kooky costumes and scenarios happening along the road to school.

But, I digress. This story is about the last day of school. Today was officially the last day of school for the 2007-2008 school year. The day started out with many of us congregating at the school, forming a line from the elementary room to the high school room to congratulate Joseph for graduating from sixth grade. As he walked along the line, we all gave him a token gift to help him move on up to seventh grade. He was cool about it, but had a huge grin on his face the whole time as his arms filled up with the gifts.

Tomorrow is graduation day for our high school senior, John, who is one of our boarding students this year. In the state of Washington, high school seniors are required to have a senior project. John chose to study sustainable farming and as part of his project he led the kitchen staff in preparing a fabulous dinner tonight. It consisted of ham, mashed roots (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots), and steamed spinach. There was also a wonderful dessert with meringue, berries, and whipped cream. Most of the food came from local farms in the Chelan area. Later this evening he did a presentation of what he had learned in his research. Since the subject matter is so huge, he concentrated on talking about beef. He presented some very interesting facts he had researched about grass fed beef versus feed lot beef.

So school is out for the summer and it is time for a few of the students to leave Holden. Besides John, our other boarding student, Stephan, will be leaving, as well as Thomas and Rachel, whose family has finished their long term stay here. By the end of next week they will be off to other places and other friends in their life journeys. But the Holden experience will always be with them. It's a great place to go to school and the old adage, "it takes a village," really applies here as so many villagers help with teaching and working with the kids.
The custodian from the school district is here this weekend to close down the school for the summer. During the summer the building is turned into Narnia where our summer children's programs happen. We have some really good, caring young adults to lead this program and the miners, jr. miners program (for high school and jr. high school ages) this summer. It should be a lot of fun.

But the summer is short and by Labor Day the school will be rearranged again and we'll be ready for another first day of school.

Bike Ride

Yesterday was a perfect day for a bike ride. Debi, Wanda and I took off on our bikes about 10:15 a.m. for a ride to Lake Chelan. We rode about 9 miles to the top of the switchbacks and were picked up by the bus about 11:10 for the rest of the trip down. (The switchbacks are steep and are about 2 miles long and we didn't want to take a chance riding down them this first trip. We heard too many stories about accidents on them.) We timed it pretty well as the bus arrived just before we arrived at the spot we planned to meet it.

Once at the lake we rode over to Refrigerator Harbor Campground where we rested, ate our lunches and explored a cave. There were tents there where some Forest Rangers were headquartered for a base camp from which they led a group of volunteers to clear the trail to Domke Lake.

After lunch we rode over the the ranger cabin to see Bob and Sue, friends who are volunteering for the Forest Service for the summer. We didn't meet up with them, but met two of the volunteers who were down there taking care of three llamas. The Forest Service uses llamas to help carry supplies into the wilderness for the trail crews. We took pictures of the llamas and after a nice visit with the volunteers, we headed back to the Lucerne boat dock to be picked up by the second transport bringing folks down from the village to catch the boat. While we were waiting, we explored the shoreline. In the winter the Chelan County PUD lets about 17 feet of water out of the lake. This causes boat passengers to have to walk up or down a ramp that is at about a 45 degree angle. You can imagine how hard it is to get luggage and freight up and down the ramp. Now with the snow melt off, the lake is coming back up to normal and within a week or two will be covering what is the winter shoreline.

Anyway we explored around the shore while waiting for our ride back up the mountain. As we were getting ready to load our bikes and backpacks into the van, Wanda's backpack started moving of it's own accord. It was funny to see her scream and drop the pack on the ground. Our savior, Dave the van driver, opened it up and dumped out a chipmunk who had feasted on her leftover lunch.

We were all dead tired by the time we got back to the village about 3:30 p.m. Strangely enough the ride did good for my aching leg muscles and bum knees. They felt good the rest of the day. We are planning another outing soon. Keep in touch!

Prom Night

Clowns, elephants, a tattooed lady, bearded ladies, acrobats, jugglers, leopards, tightrope walkers, the Big Top. . . .

What do these have in common? They all escaped from the circus and turned up at the Holden High School prom on Saturday night.

In true Holdenesque fashion the theme for the prom was "Circus Escapees at a Rave" and was attended by circus performers of all kinds. At Holden the high school prom is a village-wide event - a big celebration attended by staff and guests alike. The Village Center was decorated to look like a circus tent, everyone made good use of the costume shop, and the result was a good time for all.

When was the last time you were at a high school prom? Bet it wasn't anything like this!