Nature's Good & Bad

This has been a fairly easy week for us because the group of kids (seen at right waiting to get into the dining hall) are children of military parents who have been deployed to Iraq. We've had 3 weeks of these kids - the first 2 groups were younger, extremely noisy, and really made a mess in the dining hall which made clean-up a tedious task. This particular group are high school age, more mature and responsible, and have been careful to not leave messes for the volunteers to clean up. Sadly, a very large percentage of the younger children are on serious medications and have emotional issues -- kept our camp nurse hopping!

One of the things I love about this place is the wildlife. I usually hang bird feeders within the first day or two we arrive. It doesn't take them long to find the goodies! The squirrels and birds share the seed feeder, and the hummers are such voracious eaters that I've already gone through 5 lbs. of sugar making the nectar for their feeders. Every evening after supper we drive a loop road to the west, north and east of the campground. So far we've seen elk, antelope, deer, coyotes and a beautiful gray/silver wolf. (Wolves have recently been reintroduced into Colorado.) Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera with us the night we saw him. Abby was standing on the couch looking out the window and barking like crazy. When I looked to see what was causing the excitement, this little squirrel was trying to make friends with our "garden racoons".

If you watched national news earlier this week, you might have seen that Colorado is having bad weather conditions. On Monday, this "bad boy" touched down less than 10 miles north of the camp; local news reported $161,000,000 in damage. Most of the folks who live here say that tornadoes typically travel and destroy on flat land and rolling hills (which surrounds the camp), so since we are in the mountains it's not likely that we would be hit. But...it doesn't hurt to be prepared! Nevertheless, it was scary! The last 2 days have been bright, sunshiny days and temperatures in the high 70s. Pikes Peak is still snow laden but the snow will be melting rapidly as temperatures continue to rise. We are so blessed to serve the Lord in this beautiful place.

The Ponderosa - Our Home Away From Home

We're back for our second year of running the snack bar at The Ponderosa Baptist Conference Center near Colorado Springs. It's a month earlier than we arrived last year and the weather is C-O-L-D, cloudy and rainy! But...we're not complaining - it's beats the 100+ heat in Phoenix!



On the first sunny, clear day we were able to see Pikes Peak from the campground and were surprised to see how much snow was on the mountain. We're anxious to make a jeep trip to the top!

We have the same nice, wooded campsite we did last year, and Abby has already started chasing the squirrels who come to rob the bird feeder. No deer visitors yet, but we look every morning to see if they have decided to pay us a visit.

Campers last week were elementary-age children of our men/women soldiers who have been deployed to Iraq. Fort Carson is nearby and the base calgary, canine unit, and heavy equipment division came to camp to visit with the kids. These kids are the best, most well-behaved groups who come to Ponderosa; their counselors are right on top of everything and the kids do as they are told (guess that's the military influence at home). It's too bad we can't say that about every group!

The camp nurse keeps very busy - we have many campers who are on meds and she goes to the various dorms, cottages, etc. to administer meds rather than have them go to the infirmary. She's on the move much of the time - even late at night!

She's even nice to take care of guys like Russ who had an boo-boo on his hand. Actually, I think he got it caught in the cash register drawer while getting things ready in the gift shop!

Colorado Bound

On Saturday we finally left Show Low to head for Colorado. The first night was spent in Albuquerque. On Sunday on the way to Raton, NM we went by this familar site. In case you don't recognize it, it is the auditorium at Glorieta.

In the evening while in Raton we took a short drive and encountered some of these creatures. Our wildlife count certainly increased! Although we saw a few antelope around Raton, we saw numerous ones on the drive to Monument and the Ponderosa Retreat and Conference Center, our home for the summer.

When we arrived in Monument the temperature was in the low 70s. Late yesterday evening we experienced about 3 inches of hail. It has been raining most of the day and have had a high of 46. Just a little too cold for us but it sure beats the 100s in Phoenix.