Update 12

Hello again everybody!

We arrived back at NorthWoods on Thursday in the evening after a delightful farm tour. I left y’all on Tuesday evening after a jam packed day of Bonnieview Farms Sheep Dairy touring, visiting Bread And Puppet, and visiting Vermont Natural Coatings and their manufacturing facility. We got to Craftsbury Common with time to spare, so everyone bolted for the town library, which happened to be behind the church at which we would be staying. After doing some work and napping in the library, we ate dinner on the library’s lawn and went to bed in the church’s basement. It turned out to be a very cozy and convenient arrangement.

On Wednesday morning, after getting to sleep in a little bit, we set out for Sterling College, only a few blocks away, to help out at All-College Work Day. We separated ourselves into three groups and set about doing different tasks with specific groups of students. The student body of Sterling is made up of only about 100 students, so our group was the equivalent of almost 10% of the college. Conor, Dean, and Adam raked and cleaned windows, Everett, Michal, and Josia took part in the dismantling of a greenhouse, and Malcolm, Noah, and I went to Hardwick with some students to clean up flood damage in the community gardens and move some garden infrastructure to a new location. By 4:00, we were all done with our tasks and met back up at the Sterling campus. We regrouped and headed back to the church, where people were beginning to prepare the evening’s community dinner. The dinner at 6:30 was a happening occasion. The young and the old, families and friends, and probably mostly parishioners came, but other Craftsbury Common folk also showed. We began chatting with two girls there who happened to be fairly new Sterling students. Following a long conversation between them and our group, they offered us an informal tour of the Sterling farm. We were quite happy to take them up on that offer, so we set out, mostly barefoot, to go over to the farm. They showed us two little goats, Jorge and Julio, two sows and their piglets (full grown pigs are frightening and I would much rather come face to face with one in bacon form than in person), some calves, and the draft horses, which they, apparently, have a program devoted to. They proceeded to show us the “sunset tree” and some of the dorms. After the tour we headed back through the dark to the church for bed.

On Thursday, we piled in the van once more and left Craftsbury Common and headed for Fred Webster’s farm. Fred Webster is a 91-year-old farmer who is known for collecting old farm equipment, primarily from his own heritage and from other local farms. He was a funny guy with an awesome sense of humor and plenty of stories. Apparently, the band Phish used some of his antique farm equipment for a concert of theirs nearby a few years ago. He seemed to have a very high opinion of the band and their fans (to my combined surprise and delight) after seeing the works of art they made out of his equipment. He gave us a tour of his rickety long barns filled with interesting paraphernalia ranging from wooden horse treadmills to buggies that he let us race around. He had also built a stagecoach and was in the middle of constructing another. After putting off leaving for some time, we finally had to say goodbye. We set out once more for the horizon, bound for Butterworks, a 275-acre organic farm run by Jack and Anne Lazor. We met Jack, the owner, who gave us a tour of his barn and showed us his indoor winter pasture (an interesting idea). The vibe I got from Jack was that he was just a very down-to-earth, genuine, nice, easy-to-talk-to person with a calm demeanor. He had been a part of the “Back to the Land” movement in the 70s and found his place in grain and dairy farming. We helped him remove rocks from one of his fields and in return were given some kefir and cheese. Working with the rocks in Jack’s field was a trip back home on a certain level. We had not had much exposure to dry dust on winter trail, so I had been removed from that world. I began to think about the hot and dusty land that I’ve left behind for a time. Though there are significant differences between a dusty grain field in Vermont and a ranch in Northern Mexico, I made a bittersweet connection between my divided halves, which will eventually be reunited. To go along with the delicious dairy gifts we were given, we also bought some kefir, cheese, cream, and yogurt, some of which was consumed on the spot. I, personally, have decided that kefir is one of my favorite cultured dairy products. We returned to NorthWoods in the evening, dusty but satisfied. We began dismantling our camp upon arrival in preparation for the river, which we are all anticipating excitedly. Friday night, Lisl, Stefan, and Raina joined us to help with the coming river preparations. Pack out is Saturday and our journey will commence on Monday.

The next time you’ll here from us will probably be upon our arrival at Kroka in mid-May. I look forward to reporting on the exciting expedition to come. We hope all is well with everyone.

Until May,

-Willie C.

Here are some reflections on our farm tour and certain aspects of it.

Farm Tour

-Everett

What are we doing? Sleeping in a basement, breaking our routine and sitting for hours? Learning. Learning and experiencing other people’s small lives. Experiencing what they did thirty, forty, fifty years ago and where they have come to now. Every one rode around in buggies once and still thought about their impact on the Earth. We met some people like that. We harvested stones fro ma great field of them. It was dusty and dry, and windy. The wind blew around the tower that looked out in all four directions on the small empire of yogurt two people had created. Isn’t it a beautiful sight? Fields and great turning belts and gears and motors and creaking wooden constructs that were brought there with excitement for their potential. That is what the Farm Tour is about, seeing the people who have made something from something and built what they need to create, what they love. A passion for the land was in all of them, and they were excited about the sea of opportunities.

Fred Webster

-Adam

There have been a lot of changes in the world since 1921, the year Fred Webster was born. All he hoped to do in life was farm and teach, farming being a “primary occupation”, while teaching was just a “secondary occupation”. He worked at both careers, despite how he sees both as belittled by the society they underpin. Now at age 65, he does not want to go for morning walks and sit idly in the house. His hobby, his obsession, and his passion for years has been collecting the everyday relics of a bygone rural past, from buggies to sap buckets to farm machines. He is a particular sort of curator; if a sleigh’s front was bent from having lumber stored on top of it in some barn, or a handbag forgotten on a buggy seat, he has left them as they were, and neatly tagged them for his museum’s catalogue. He is unwilling to renovate or refurbish the past, or alter any of the battered rural treasures has amassed. His collections attempts to “show the evolution of things”, whether they be shovels, threshers, axles, or vehicles. Mr. Webster has sacrificed dearly for this end, hoping to show young people the recent history he fears they have little connection to. But if you think, “the Old Days were simpler?” he’ll answer definitively, “Oh no, there was a science back then.” He has sold cows to afford antiques, and all while putting 8 kids through school as a single father. No wonder he was known for falling asleep while teaching Drivers Ed, considering he got up at 2:30 most mornings to milk 40 cows before getting his kids ready. Accordingly, he will be the first to remind he has paid for his whole collections, and is free of debt. To those who “want to do their own thing”, he’ll shout, “Fiddlesticks! You’re ‘trying to find your way?’ Get moving buddy!” This fits with a man brought up on a family farm, where there was always work to do, and someone to tell you how to do it. Even when the price of milk plummeted and credit dried up you could shovel gravel for 15 cents an hour, as part of Roosevelt’s “socialist” programs. And if anybody ever asks you why you should get the job at an interview, respond that you can work, and then prove it when you get the job.  Mr. Webster has worked every year of his life, and is proud of doings so.
He is not an environmentalist, but he is a liberal; and he won’t apologize for anything. During our visit to his property, he taught us how to “pull tits” (milk a cow), how to use a shovel properly, educated us on the decorum of peeing on a farm, and encouraged us to race 200 year old buggies around his farm-yard. When we asked him about his legacy, he said his greatest fear is that his collection will be scattered someday, and the oral history he recorded go unpublished. Standing amidst the dozens of machines, sleighs, and boilers you may see a mass of broken junk rusting in a dilapidated barn, or you may see a man’s life’s work, and the history he seeks to carry forward to all those willing to learn from it. 

Butterworks Farm

-Michal

“I bet you’re all from the suburbs?” he asked in a peaceful almost whisper. Yes, I am, and I remembered just how lucky I felt to be in that place where I stood, in a field covered in rocks to be moved, in the amazing little room at the top of he grain tower, the magical indoor pasture.  I remembered the suburbs; It hasn’t been long.  You don’t walk on green grass that is not your own.   I drove once for 45 minutes to find local organic milk.  Horses are against the law, but here the children were walking one around their yard, playing.  There was something in the way they treated that place, and it treated them back in kind.  Jack told us that he was part of the back to the land movement, coming from elsewhere to put everything that he had into the creation and management of this farm, and yet he belonged so happily and completely that you could hear his voice echoing the airy whistle of the wind blowing past the grain tower room, calling back to it, but quietly, because it was not far away.  I cannot know exactly what work and care went into this place, but in the dust that flew in my face as I bent down to pick up rocks whispered a sort of reassurance.  I’ve never seen more wonderfully how a person can belong to a piece of land, and it will take care of them.

Bonnieview Farm

-Noah

I walked into the barn.  I heard them before I saw them. And then they were there, a swarm of sheep big and small, all different colours.  The cuteness was overwhelming. In the back of the room there was a young sheep who didn’t run from me, he ran towards me and began to suck my thumb.  And then it happened.  Its newly grown teeth sank into my flesh.  I yanked my hand away and saw the crimson blood flowing out.  But I couldn’t stay mad at something so cute.

“Man does not live by bread alone”. 

-Malcolm

Bread and Puppet Theatre was the second stop on our excursion, and it helped to shape my view of all the farms and farmers.  At Bread and Puppet they focused on the need for food and art.  For Farmers, food is their art.  Seeing Fred Webster’s Barns of old equipment showed clearly the lost medium that farming has become.  Visiting Butterworks, we could see the farmer’s love of the art.  Farmers like Jack, who farm for the land, may be slowly disappearing into the sunset.  But seeing the students at Sterling so excited about the land has sparked my hope.

Sterling College

-Conor

We spent a day working alongside Sterling College students. I really enjoyed this social explosion. It was great to have so many new people to talk to, especially since most of them shared similar interests. Luckily, most of the students seemed to enjoy having us there and talking to us. Sterling only has around a hundred students, so our group was almost ten percent of their student body. We were all happy to see new faces.

The atmosphere at Sterling was great. All the students really got into All-School Work Day and were happy to clean up their campus. Everyone knew everybody. Only first names were needed for people to know whom you were talking about. This tight-knit community seemed so similar to ours and I felt very welcomed and at home.

Farm Tour

-Josia

People like Jack Lazor are purely inspirational. How he went about everything was incredibly kind and honest.  I really wanted him to teach us more.  More about the process of making the farm, more about what he thinks of the world.

Farm tour, for me, was more about the people.  Even just the different ways we were shown around and spoken to about the places- from the shy farmer at Bonnieview to the really good-seeming, well-intentioned people who sell polywhey at Vermont Natural Coatings. Fred Webster in all his oddity, the women I ate dinner with and talked to at the church, the range of people at Sterling.  Jack and Anne Lazor and how much care and love they put into their work.  Even the librarian in Craftsbury who indulged my literary starvation.  They all brought unique perspectives, even different from Charlie Strickland or Chris or Misha or Tweeter or my parents.  And I’ve been listening.  And trying to really hear, not just nod or be complacent.  I actually have to think.

Vermont Natural Coatings

-Dean

When you go to visit a farm, you expect to meet a farmer. You don’t know what kind of person the farmer will be, but you are certain that they will be a farmer.

When we visited VNC I did not know who we could expect to meet. What kind of person works with wood finishings? I didn’t know.

When we arrived we met a group of resourceful and motivated people excited to turn a waste product into a business product. They came together because they had a desire to work with what they had around them & to create something that fulfills more than just their basic needs. VNC creates wood finishings out of the waste product whey, which you find in dairy farms.

Although they are not at the point where they can use leftover whey from their neighboring farm, or from Bonnieview, they are burning to. It is so frustrating to them that while it is so close physically it is so far economically. There is a lot of expensive equipment needed to process the whey before they can use it, so they are required to buy from farther sources. They would need to grow bigger to afford to stay local. Which is their goal.

On our visits we have mostly met farmers who are living in a very close relationship to their land. I really enjoyed seeing how similar ideas of how to live close to and within your surroundings can coalesce into a business that does not directly work the land.

The Church Dinner.

The 6^th Grade Spaghetti Supper.

Carlisle Old Home Day, with the frog jump contest & the aisle of local craftsmakers.

My frog never won that contest & every year I meet my friend at his mom’s booth in the aisle & I buy a few buttons and a dog toy. We go to the library book sale & there meet many more people. It’s sometimes more about the people than the books.

I am a part of Carlisle Old Home Day.

I met a family at the Church that we slept at when we visited Sterling College. They didn’t talk much to me about themselves. They asked me a lot of questions & leaned across the table, very very interested & proud of some kid they just met, who is not quite a kid anymore. But luckily, still just not quite a kid for a good while longer.

They took good care of their kids.

They stayed afterward to help clean up, & made sure to ask for more work before they found it was time for them to go home.

I wished them luck & I thanked them too.

They are a part of the Church & the 3^rd or 2^nd Wednesday Dinner every month.

Being a part of something feels good.

When all of our parents came here for Parent Weekend, that felt especially good.

It reminded me of the Mother’s Group that was a great part of my growing up.

I need to call Christian when I am back home. We talk sometimes but I haven’t seen him in a long time. I still call him Christian but I’m pretty sure the whole rest of the world calls him Chris now.

Being anonymous in a large place can be nice every now and then, but it doesn’t feel good forever.

I don’t think floating through everyone being your friend would make me happy for very long either.

A large small group of people.

A neighborhood.

A church dinner.

I like the way those place feel.

-Dean

Update 11

Ta-dah!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Family and Friends of the 2012 Kroka Vermont Semester,

We now present КОЗЕП, our new cedar and canvas canoe. We’ve spent the last week or so working relentlessly on it, but we sure could not have accomplished it without the guidance and help of Scott who left us on Sunday. He was an amazing teacher and I think the group agrees that his skills are unparalleled. It was sad to see him go, but he left us with an awesome canoe, put together by him and the group. The canoe is painted dark green, and the frame is primarily cedar. When one peers inside, little shiny gold specks glare up, the ends of tacks holding the boat together, awaiting an adventure on the water. 

That evening, we gathered around the boat with Scott and admired his and our work. It was beautiful to see, and there was little doubt that this was truly a masterpiece. I know we’re going to thoroughly enjoy using this precious water vessel. Elisa also left us on Saturday, but only after having taught us a few very crucial skills. Her enthusiasm and patience during our paddling lessons were greatly appreciated. 

We spent almost all of Monday finishing up on our academic work. We were busy making pack basket liners, doing laundry, and getting last minute assignments done before heading out on farm tour. 

Luckily, we were able to take a very welcome break in the afternoon for a walk in the woods.  

It was an amazing opportunity to learn about forest ecology and forest 

management from Jayson Benoit and Jon Cox.  

Jayson, the Operations Director and Land Management Coordinator at Northwoods, is an encyclopedic source of knowledge about the local ecosystems, and he can identify all the birds.  Jon is a 2011 Vermont Semester graduate who has been working at Northwoods since the summer.  We had a wonderful time thinking about forest stewardship, identifying wild edibles and spring ephemerals, looking for salamanders, and climbing a huge mossy boulder.  We are blessed to have people like Jayson and Jon as our hosts here at Northwoods.

During the day Conor decided to go and be a cooking god and made us surprise cinnamon rolls with apples and raisins inside and chocolate on top. I made a dinner of enchiladas and beans. Pleasantly stuffed, we proceeded to break out the ice cream Lu had brought us. It was a great night. 


On Tuesday morning, we got up, packed our sleeping bags and overnight stuff sacks, and got ready to head out on farm tour. The chores were finished and we all piled into the van to head for Bonnieview Farms, a sheep dairy farm near East Craftsbury. We arrived and got to see the cheese making facilities and pet the lambs. It was an amazing experience. I had never seen a lamb act like such a bro before (Malcolm, Noah, and I found this really awesome little lamb that just NEEDED to be chilled with). After that, we all went to Bread And Puppet, where we saw “cheap art” with lots of local history and political messages and puppet tableaus that were simultaneously disturbing and moving. 
We continued on our way, having wound our way across the distance of our entire small group solos several times, to Vermont Natural Coatings in Hardwick. We took a tour and learned about the finishes that we put on our paddles and canoe (we used Vermont Natural Coatings’ PolyWhey finishes) and their business and philosophy. The finishes are water-based and revolve around whey obtained from cheese makers, especially those in the area. 
After a very interesting yet exhausting day, we headed to Craftsbury, where we planned to spend the night in a church’s basement. We arrived in town a few hours early, so, upon noticing a library behind the church, some of us made a dash for the books, while others enjoyed the sunshine and green grass. Meanwhile, Noah and Malcolm played on the plastic alligator seesaw in the church backyard, before joining the rest of us.

And so I sit here writing in the library, looking at a pine tree out the window, occasionally looking into a book titled "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts Of America’s Past",and writing the update. I know we’ll have an adventure tomorrow. We’ll be headed to Sterling College for their All-College Workday, and subsequently back to the church at which we’re staying to participate in a community dinner, but we can save that all for next time.

Stay Tuned!

Update 10

It’s like when you greet the day and it actually works.  As in, your brain shuts up for once and all of a sudden the trees and the wind and the sky are all BAM! In your face! Then is when the being out under and in it all is real and living. Not when you go for a whale watch or some removed way of being immersed in nature, but when the civilized educated human thing turns off and the trees actually start talking. 

I love having conversations with trees.  Sometimes, it’s the best kind of medicine for internal confusion or cranial distress of any kind.  Just sitting up there in a crown of magic-filled buds, with your arms wrapped around its trunk, feels like the best kind of hug. All the social nuances and people’s opinions about stupid crazy tree-huggers fade away.  Al of a sudden it’s just me and the tree, ready to converse.  But being alone is completely necessary, so everything can be described without self-consciousness;  “Hey tree, I’m leaving for 5 months and I’m so confused.  Can you listen a minute? And then keep a good eye on my family and kitties for me while I’m gone?  Thank you.  I love you.  I’ll come chat with you a while every day until I leave, I promise. 

Conversations like that are a bit silly.  But really, they happen because I feel like humans and trees are compatible and possibly even able to think at each other and understand each other’s thoughts. I want to always be able to feel how I do when I’m splayed out on a warm rock as though it’s absorbing me.  I want to know how those little buds feel when the sun is knocking on their outer casing, asking to be let in, making everything inside the bud want to burst and dance and glow in the radiant light.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy to put so much trust in the trees.  But maybe I’m not. I used to carry an acorn around in my pocket, pressed up against my leg all the time, so that the seed of hope and rebirth for that tree could always be with me and touching me, sort of.  Now that acorn lives in my sleeping bag. That one tiny nut was often enough to get me through the day at school, when I felt my soul being leeched out from inside of me, stripped of all its tree-induced spunk. But I wouldn’t say everyone feels like this.  It’s something you have to want, or need, and then sustain.  Not everyone cares, or is able to let go of society enough to actually listen to their gut and let themselves talk to the trees.

-Josia

Hello again to all families and friends of the 2012 Kroka Vermont Semester.

There’s been a lot going on here at NorthWoods with Kroka as of late. Guest teachers continue to come and go, but the lessons and skills left by each one will resonate forever.

Chris and Ashirah, who had come to teach basket making, left on Friday, April 6 after we had completed our pack baskets. It was tough to say goodbye after spending a week with them, their kids, and the brown ash, however, their impact was immediately felt. We’ve made our pack baskets an indispensible part of our daily lives, using them to carry our day-to-day supplies to and fro around NorthWoods. Without them, we might have continued to be organizational messes (not that we ever were).

During the afternoon on Friday, parents and families began arriving for Parent Weekend. We were all very excited to see them. We showed them around and got them acquainted with our new lives. There was a lot to catch up on, between showing off our recent projects and being briefly reintroduced to the outside world by our families, which felt almost like a little blast of culture shock.

For dinner on Friday, our families participated in a beautiful and delicious Seder (traditional Passover meal and ceremony) that was led by Michal’s family. We all went to bed with full stomachs after a good day.

On Saturday, families came to a traditional Kroka breakfast of kasha, cheesy eggs, potatoes, yogurt, jam, and milk. Afterward, everyone set out to spend the day with their loved ones, some choosing to relax and enjoy the day at NorthWoods, others choosing to leave briefly and explore the area. Evening rolled around and families gathered for dinner and a presentation from the students. After feasting on a wonderfully prepared potluck, everyone settled down for the presentation, to which the public was invited. We divided into two groups and performed skits. Everett, Conor, Dean, and Adam performed a skit about the “two inner voices” heard by all semester students. Adam was faced with many day-to-day predicaments and the voices that accompanied them, played by Everett and Conor. Dean narrated and played the roles of snow, sun, and log. 

Malcolm, Josia, Noah, Michal, and I performed a skit about “betting hills” from the first leg of the expedition. Malcolm went from audience member to audience member making bets on how each skier (Josia, Michal, Noah, & myself) would fare as they skied down the icy slope. Several audience members won pieces of chocolate. Along with the skits, we sang a few songs, talked about the trees we’ve learned about, explained our new Large Jobs, and answered questions. A slide show containing pictures from the winter expedition and our stay thus far at NorthWoods followed. After that, everyone got up, moved the chairs out, and got ready for the contra dance. It was quite interesting and amusing to watch our families (and ourselves) fumble and stumble while attempting to dance. That night was a very entertaining one.

On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast with our families and enjoyed the last few hours to be shared with them during this visit. When lunchtime came, everyone gathered in a circle. My family and I introduced cascarones, confetti-filled eggshells used for breaking on people’s heads, to the group as a way to celebrate Easter. On the U.S. – Mexico border, this is a popular tradition. My own Easter experiences are covered in confetti from having fun cascaron wars with family. After viewing a demonstration of my sister cracking one on my head, everyone under 20 years of age received two cascarones for use as they pleased. From that point on, a good number of people had confetti stuck in their hair. We shared another potluck meal together and finally said our goodbyes. Goodbyes like these can be emotional, but we anticipate seeing our folks again at graduation.

On Monday, Scott, our canoe-building teacher, arrived, as did Polly, a wilderness guide and dog musher who brought us the canoe mold we would be using. She also presented a slide show of pictures from her wilderness experiences in Canada, Alaska, and Maine. 

On Tuesday, Elisa, our paddling teacher arrived, and we got working on the canoe. At that point, we began to realize just how quickly the spring expedition is coming up on us. As of today, we’ve finished the frame, planking, seats, and ribs. It’s really coming along.

And now, here are a couple entries from a recent session of Pushups and Poetry.  I hope you enjoy them!

-Willie 

We have lived on this earth for thousands of years and have spread across it into vast civilizations. From nomadic tribes of hunters to the people of the cities we subsist in some form or other off the earth and what is or once was wilderness.  These days, there is an abyss between most of our lives and the earth.  We have forgotten that we need it to live.

But for some of us, the wilderness is life.  The birds chirp there and the sun sets more beautifully.  It is a place where, under stars and moon, we can sleep without the worries of the modern age.  Even as it is a temple of great magnitude and beauty, it is even more what we need to survive.

Our food and water comes from the earth’s wilder places.  This is where I have felt a connection with the earth, in its beauty and grandeur and in the water and plants and creatures we consume.  Taking the life of a creature with whom we share the planet is where I feel the greatest bond can be formed.  Using everything, from its meat to its hide and blood.  It creates something stronger and brings me closer to the place and the land it came from and the wild life it lived.

-Everett

 Many people view the natural world as something to be dominated and taken advantage of. We clear forests to build farms and cities.  We use resources until there are very few to be used. We expect the world to give and don’t repay it in kind.

I am learning the importance of living alongside nature. My experiences on this journey have brought me closer to nature than many people will ever find themselves.  My teachers have instilled within me a consciousness of the world around me.  Even more importantly, I have learned the great importance of the single act of giving thanks.  I now think to thank the resource I am using, whether it’s a tree or a beaver.  I realize that it is a gift.  These are simple thing, yet they are critical to my relationship with the natural world.

There needs to be a balance. Take only what you need and give back, even if all you can do is say thank-you.

-Conor

Update 9

Dear families and friends of the 2012 Vermont Semester,

I’m Willie, the new scribe and logistics manager this spring.

I am very excited to be writing the updates and keeping all of you informed.

            

We recently arrived at NorthWoods Stewardship Center, our mid-point between winter and spring expeditions where we will be staying for a month. 

After two-and-a-half months, we finally wrapped up the winter with the closing of our original big jobs. Now, we are excited to begin a new season, having accepted our new “Large Jobs”.

We are all gearing up to accomplish more great things. The Spring Large Job list is as follows:

            Canoe Manager- Malcolm

            River Food Manager/ Botanist- Josia

            Base Camp Food And Kitchen Manager- Dean

            Camp And Gear Manager/ Meteorologist- Adam

            Medic/ Forager- Conor

            Sewing Manager/ Buckskin Manager- Everett

            Scribe And Logistics Manager- Willie

            Fire And Energy Manager/ Botanist- Noah

            Navigator/ Ornithologist- Michal

Coupled with some of the Large Jobs are new “Small Jobs” that are unique to the spring (Large Jobs are in bold type, Small Jobs are underlined). Everyone is excitedly taking on their new jobs.

Our first major task upon arrival at NorthWoods was camp setup. Honey Hollow, a large A-frame canvas tent, was put up first for use as a kitchen, dining, and meeting area. Next, we put up three smaller A-frame tents, one for use as the girls’ sleeping tent and two for use as teacher sleeping quarters. The expedition tent was set up as the guys’ sleeping quarters. 

Our next major task was paddle making, which Grandfather came to teach. Grandfather is a wilderness guide from Maine who is a dear friend to Kroka.  He also was a teacher and mentor to Chris and Ashira, Chris’s wife, who will be teaching us to make our packbaskets. Grandfather stayed with us for three days, guiding us through the paddle making process and sharing his endless supply of wisdom with us.

Andrew had left us on March 24, and considering how much he put into our winter expedition, we decided to thank him in a unique way. Our thank you card to him was a game of “Telephone-Pictionary” that was revolved around a phrase expressing Andrew’s awesomeness. Telephone-Pictionary, for those of you who do not know, is a drawing and writing game. 

We first played the game as a group on the Entire Group Solo near the end of the third leg. Everyone starts by writing a phrase on a piece of paper. Next, the page is passed to the next person in the circle. Their task is to depict that phrase in a drawing. After the first phrase is drawn, the pages are passed again. Now the drawing must be described by a phrase. The game continues in this way for as long as the players choose to continue. It is pretty much guaranteed that the ending phrase will be hilariously different from the original. Some of the pages from Andrew’s thank-you began with phrases like “Andrew, you are a shining star” and ended with phrases like “The protostar turned into a giant and imploded into a black hole.” We had a lot of fun with that card.

On the 29^th, Nathan came up from Kroka to teach us physics. We spent the day on the 30^th talking about different energy forms and the movement of energy through everyday processes and its conversion into its different forms. The next day we had a lab day. We basically got to play with batteries, switches, and light bulbs to our hearts’ content (we had real assignments making circuits, but it felt like we were just playing around). Nathan left yesterday to go back to Kroka, but Chris, Ashira, and family showed up around 1:00. 

After making our physics presentations, we set out with Chris and his son Owen to procure a brown ash tree for pounding and basket making (Adam was thrilled to find out that Owen, who is four years old, is very interested in the American Revolution). We drove out to the highway and walked up the snow mobile trail along the Clyde River (a little blast from the past and reminder of our group solos). A few minutes after we began poking around in the woods, we found the ideal ash tree. We notched and thanked the tree in preparation for the saw-down. Noah gave the tree a big hug and a pat on the back. The group hauled the tree in chunks back to the van and we returned to NorthWoods. This morning, Chris gave us the introduction to brown ash pounding. The sound of mallets on the logs provides a quiet rhythm to the day as I write. Over the next few days, Chris and Ashira will guide us through the basket making process, helping us make our spring pack baskets.

As usual, a little peek into our “Pushups And Poetry” sessions is in store. Enjoy!

Josia

Right now

This exact instant

I feel so wonderfully

Incredulabulously

Happy

Satisfied

Whole

Home, with my chosen family.

Today, we played tag

And all felt like the luckiest little children

That there ever were.

So many times tonight

I nearly died laughing

Into my leader’s

My mentor

My friend’s arms.

There was so much love in the air today.

I feel like yesterday, communicating

Just thinking about communicating

Made such an enormous difference.

I feel like some invisible barrier was broken down

The Berlin wall crumpled

And the joy and love we have for one another

The ways we show and tell one another about it

Just surged right in afterwards.

We spent evening meeting telling Lu how much we love her

And then keeling over our bubbling stomachs

Laughing loud and strong
About the bubbles, and about our silliness.

Willie - “Med Bag Blues”

Whether you get diarrhea

And need the Diarrex

Or glycerin suppositories

for the opposite effects

It’s all in the med bag

The red dry sack

If you get yourself cut

And you need patching up

Get the gauze out

Don’t be shy

It’s all in the med bag

It’s always standing by

Michal

I am always amazed by the power of small triumphs and simple gestures. They affect my mood and my work, shaping my life. They are the small speck of bark left on a paddle handle, or the feeling that I get finishing it, knowing that it is my best work.

Problems always seem to come in chunks, and all at once. They pile into a mountain you don’t want to cross, until you notice the snow.

It’s falling onto the trees, which are waiting just ahead, waiting to offer a hand or just to watch over you as you go.

So much friendship happens in silence, when you take a moment from your like to observe someone else’s, pondering it, wondering what they are thinking and where they are headed.

You are standing by, ready the moment they need a hand, a shoulder or a kick in the butt.

We are made aware of the waiting by the little things.

You hear your friends singing a joke to you and feel like the most loved person in the world.

A sheepish grin from across the room –

Mocking.

A witty joke

Well, that’s all for now. Stay tuned in for our next update!

-Willie C.

(Insert 15-minute improvised instrumental solo here)