Winter Facility Updates and Changes

There is always a long list of things to do when camp is over for the summer. The camp shutdown itself is a time-consuming project as the water is drained everywhere and anything moveable gets put inside or under roof. The waterfront is closed with the boats, buoy lines, paddles, life jackets, etc all moved to the pavilion. The insulated walk-in cooler and freezer serve an opposite use as the places we put things we don’t want to freeze for the winter – craft supplies, any liquid cleaners, paints and more. This is also the best time for cabin repairs and work around camp while no one is there. Roofs have been repaired on a few cabins, the floors of all the Cardinal cabins have been sanded and refinished, the back overhang of the Dining Hall roof has been replaced, some trees have been removed, Tali’s house got new stain on the outside, Pam’s house has a new floor, we’re working on new windows for Nici’s house and the office front will see some upgrades a bit later this winter.

All the beds in camp are now wooden with some new shelves to accompany them. These are all built with our own lumber made from our own trees. We also made thousands of board feet of new lumber that will be ready to use later this year after it dries properly. The Eagles bathroom has a new – and very cool – sink countertop with the Clivus bathroom next on the list of countertops. We hope to enlarge the Eagles bathroom this spring. More improvements have been made in the stables and the corral. At the farm, we reseeded one of the large pasture fields for better yield, stored 250 round bales of hay to feed the horses, put a new roof on the storage building and started the yearly project of cutting back brush and trees along all the fence lines. Maintaining about 40 acres of fence lines is a constant effort but important in making sure our pastures are in good order and the horses are safe inside.

The Muskingum Watershed Conservation District forest management team is removing some trees on their land along the camp road. They are at work right now taking trees from in between the upper riding ring down to the road and from the upper riding ring down to the lake on the other side. It is a very selective cut of some valuable lumber trees as well as some unhealthy trees that need removed. This will give us a few more trails to ride and hike and perhaps create some new Woodslore project areas. We can also rebuild the upper riding ring fence this year. We left it off our ‘to do’ list this fall so the MWCD could use the ring as a staging area for their equipment and be able to take out a few trees without worry of hitting our fence line.

There is a longer list of improvements to talk about as they are completed when the weather breaks. Cody, Olan and James work hard to make Falcon a safe and nicer place each year and their contributions to camp are huge. Enjoy the pictures of some of our projects!