Summer

Today felt like summer was here. We don't have any photos at the moment (the author was stuck on high ropes all day), but we had some great programs. Groups caught Musk Turtles, Crayfish, Fairy Shrimp and Frogs in all stages of development. We had a hawk hanging around camp and an Osprey caught a fish in front of our class. To top it all off, two of our groups got to visit Coonamessett Farm. Here's hoping the weather holds tomorrow.

Campfire

Getting started.........
....and they're started

Sharon Alternative School

Today was the first day of Sharon Alternative School's visit to Camp Burgess. The weather was awesome and set us up for a great afternoon of Low Ropes. Right now everyone is munching away on BBQ chicken and corn before heading to our opening camp fire. We will try and get some photos of that up later. Okay, got to go light a fire.

OEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The Outdoor Education season has officially begun with the arrival of eight new staff to begin their transformation into Outdoor Education Gurus. They bring with them an array of skill and talents that gives them a head start on the road to Gurudom. We start Monday morning and plan on spending the day taking a big hike around getting to know our classroom, so expect some pictures soon.

Spring Clean

We have promised a new Spring look for The Electric Spectacle, and it will happen, but we have had a few more pressing things to do. A couple of days ago we decided it was time to give Rafiki and Nala's sleeping area a Spring clean. Over the winter we used a deep litter system, to keep the pigs warm. This involves adding clean bedding regularly without clearing out the old stuff. The old stuff underneath starts to decompose and give off some warmth. It did the trick but meant we had a lot of shoveling to do. Here is a picture of the nice clean bedding and the old stuff that we piled on the compost heap.

Pinkletinks

This weekend the Spring Peepers came to life on camp. Spring Peepers are a small frog, called Pinkletinks on Martha's Vineyard. They "spring" (sorry) to life in March and April, whenever we get the first warm rain, and they meet up in pools to mate and lay eggs. You can read more about them here or here. There isn't a good place for them to hang out at Burgess because they like pools with not many fish. The swamp at Hayward is a good place to hear them and they also like the vernal pool near Kitteridge (not far from High Ropes). They'll still be making noise during summer camp if you want to hear them.

UFO Spotted at Burgess........

Spring look coming soon.....

Sorry for the break from posting, we've been out enjoying the Spring. The plan was to give The Electric Spectacle its new Spring look with some new photos, but the weather got all crazy and cold again. Hopefully things will look up by the weekend.

Happy Vernal Equinox

Today is the Vernal Equinox, which means lots of fun things.
- The sun is directly above the equator today.
- There will be an equal amount of day and night today.
- We can look forward to more day light and less dark.
- SPRING is here!!!
- SUMMER isn't far behind!!!

Camp Friend

Marty stopped by to visit the other day with his wife and baby girl. It was great to see them all. Marty, from Ireland, worked here for a year and a half as Lois' Assistant in the kitchen. He has mad skills with the food and Lois misses his greatly. We tried to coax him into the kitchen, but he wasn't having any of it.

Open House

Thanks to everyone who came to our Open House today. It was probably a record turnout. We had some amazing weather to enjoy as we walked around. If you missed the Open House but would like to see us, just give us a call on 508 428 2571, and we'll see if we can work something out. You can also join us on our Volunteer Day, Saturday May 9th.

Spring is springing

As the days get warmer camp starts to spring to life. We have our first group of campers in this weekend and to welcome them to camp the geese have started pairing up. This means that pretty soon they will be building nests, laying eggs and then vigorously guarding them. Before long out will pop the cute little goslings, who remain cute for about a week. You guys know the rest of the story. So far there have been no sitings of the "Doose" or "Guck", the mysterious creature that some have claimed to be a cross between a Goose and a Duck. We'll keep our eyes open and camera at the ready.

Open House

This Sunday we will be holding our last scheduled Open House of the spring. Come and visit us, we'll have refreshments and happy smiling staff providing guided tours and answering questions. We meet at the Burgess Dining Hall, so come down anytime between 1pm and 4pm. We'd love to see you, even if you already know camp, bring a friend.The Snacks

The Shrine

Now and Then

These shots were taken in the office, one this morning and one in the 1960's. The Camp Office used to provide housing and meeting space for the Camp staff. Today we have grown so much that it is now all office space. We have most of our meetings at the dining hall so that we can get everyone around a table.

March

Have you ever heard anyone say that March is their favorite Month? Didn't think so. In New England it feels like one month of winter too many.
For the Romans, March was the first month of the year and named Martius after Mars, the god of war. In Rome, where the climate is Mediterranean, March is the first month of spring, a logical point for the beginning of the year as well as the military campaign season.
In Finnish, the month is called maaliskuu, which originates from maallinen kuu, meaning earthy month, because during maaliskuu, earth finally became visible under the snow. Historical names for March include the Saxon Lenctmonat, named after the equinox (more on the equinox later in the month) and gradual lengthening of days, and the eventual namesake of Lent.
It definitely means the start of the new year at Camp. Even though we've had groups here through the winter, March is when things start to happen, with groups here every weekend. At the end of March we will start to get our first staff arriving and things will really get moving.
Bring on the spring.

Back in the day

Another great shot from the archives. This is taken in what is now the Burgess parking lot. Times change. We no longer do riflery at Camp and this location became the archery range/parking lot and then just the parking lot. We have a new archery range, but who knows, maybe riflery will one day make a comeback just like the hair styles and clothes in the picture.

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The Electric Spectacle goes global

We just finished our first month of using Google Analytics to see how many people read the blog and where they read it from. It makes some interesting reading and is considerably more fun than the old service we used. The map above shows where people were reading from during the month of February. The readership was mostly from the USA and a good few from the UK. We also had readers in the following far flung places;
United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Australia, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Hungary, Sweden, Costa Rica, Japan, France, New Zealand and Kenya. If you think you might be one of our far flung friends, drop us an email ( camp[at]ssymca.org ) with the title "The Electric Spectacle". We'd love to publish your story and make you famous.

Two ways to keep in touch.....

On the right hand side of the blog you will see a new widget that allows you to subscribe to The Electric Spectacle by email. This will send you a quick email whenever we put a new post up, so it will save you having to remember to check back. If they get annoying, it is super easy to "unsubscribe" from us. Easy eh.
This one is a bit more complicated, but you can also set up a feed to us by clicking on the subscription links on the right. One good way to do this is to click on the Atom feed and if you have a Firefox browser you can put a little button with drop down box onto your web browser. Don't be scared to play around with the feeds, you won't break them and if all else fails just use the email subscription.

Snow Day

Snow Days don't really work out too well for us at Camp. With a lot of us living on site we don't have much of an excuse for staying at home. A pretty big storm hit the Northeast last night, but it seems like we got away lightly compared to some other places. For anyone reading this from warmer parts of the world, here is what you are missing.

Open House

Some hardy future campers braved the weather with their families today for our Open House. We had hot drinks and snacks to cheer people up after their frosty walk around camp. Thanks to everyone for coming and brightening up the dining hall. Our next Open House is scheduled for March 15th, rain, sleet, snow or shine.

Now and Then

Now and then on The Electric Spectacle we will post a picture of a place on camp as it looks now and how it looked then. Enough said really. Here is the first, taken in the Camp Burgess Office yesterday and sometime in the 1960's (we think).

The View 8

Meet Rachel and her panorama of Triangle Pond. We managed to catch Rachel in a rare break from hiring the best Camp Hayward Summer staff since......... well, a long time ago. We don't know what the hat is all aboot. Right now Rachel has just started another semester of the Wellness Program that she runs with Donna, for girls from local schools. Rachel loves to travel and sample the local foods.

Happy National Clam Chowder Day

We don't know who designated National Clam Chowder day, but we're going to jump on that bandwagon. Hey every day is Clam Chowder Day on Cape Cod.
Here is a good recipe that serves 4, if you want to celebrate with us.

Ingredients:
* 3 slices bacon, diced
* 1 cup chopped onion
* 3 cups diced potatoes
* 1 bottle (8 ounces) clam juice
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper
* 14 ounces chopped clams
* 3 tablespoons flour
* 2 cups half-and-half
* 1 cup milk

Preparation:
Cook bacon until crisp in a Dutch oven or large, heavy saucpan. Remove bacon to paper towels with slotted spoon; drain. Add onion to bacon drippings; sauté until softened. Add potatoes and clam juice, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Remove from heat. Add minced clams with their liquid. Whisk flour into milk; add to chowder with half-and-half. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until clam chowder thickens and bubbles, or about 3 minutes.

Hayward Cabins Get Some Love

The Hayward cabins have been getting some care and love over the winter. Many of them have a nice new paint job and Maples, Pines and Oaks have some nice new windows. Have a look for yourself.

Web Albums

The link below will take you to the Camp Burgess & Hayward albums on Picasa. We just got the Ski & Snowboard pics up there. Soon we will have permanent links to our web albums in the side bar of the blog.
http://picasaweb.google.com/CampBurgessHayward/TeenSkiTrip2009?feat=directlink

More Ski Trip

Here are more photos from the February vacation Teen Ski and Snowboard Adventure. We run the trip every year, but it fills up fast so contact us in the fall to get a spot. This year 16 teens went to the White Mountains in New Hampshire from Monday to Friday. They packed in three days of powder, two nights of skating and a night of snow tubing. Here are some more photos, but check back tomorrow and we will get the rest onto a Flickr account for your perusal.

Camp Friend

A longtime friend of Camp, Jenn, called in for a chat today. Jenn is making a quick trip to Camp to escape the cold Montreal winter, and of course catch up with Camp friends. She is 32 weeks pregnant as you can see in the photo. She worked here for several years as boating director and an outdoor educator.
If you are anywhere near Spectacle Pond, call in for a chat, we'll take your picture and make you famous.

Actual Ski Trip Photos

Here we go, batch number one of the ski trip photos. The week went well except for some delays driving after they got 10 inches of powder dumped on them. Fortunately they got to reap the benefit of all that fresh stuff on the beautiful White Mountains in New Hampshire. We'll have some better ones up tomorrow, we were having some technical problems with memory cards today, so stay tuned.

A wee break from posting

Hey, just a quick note to let you know that we have not forgotten you. A bunch of us are out of town, and other people are resting up from the teen ski and snowboard trip. We'll get some pictures up on Monday so you can see how the week went. Until then!

Walkabout

Most Friday afternoons in the winter at Camp, we try and get all the staff together to do a project. Sometimes it ends up being things that need doing, like stuffing envelopes or cleaning out basements, but it is more fun doing it as a group. For a change last Friday we went on a walk around Burgess. The idea was mainly just to have a walk, but we also wanted to dream a little and talk about things that we could do to make this amazing place even more beautiful and fun.

Rally!

Gage & Akira lead the charge

I know this looks a little strange, but serious thinking was taking place.

The scary shed in the old orchard.

This saw one too many games of "Sink the Swiss"

Walks around Camp are no joke

Enjoying the winter view from the lodge.

Weekend Work

You might think that in the middle of winter here at Camp we spend our nights and weekends hanging out around a fire, all alone, waiting for people to start coming to Camp. Well you'd be right, except the all alone part. All through the winter we get groups coming down to spend the weekend enjoying Camp and hanging out around the fire. Last week we had a big group from one of the Boston area colleges here. We know that the pictures don't have any people in them (for privacy reasons) so you'll have to take our word on it.

The View 7

Silva has such a nice view of Triangle Pond that he brings his fancy camera to work just to take pictures of it. At the moment Silva is an interview machine and spends most days talking to potential summer staff superstars. Silva loves a game of football (soccer) and is a fan of English team Tottenham Hotspur, who play in London. He's also taking martial arts classes and is a hand-walking champion.

New Do

You may have noticed that "The Electric Spectacle" has a bit of a new "hair do." From now on this page, just like Camp, is going to change with the seasons. The new picture is of the sun setting over Pinkham Island and a frozen Spectacle Pond. Sorry for the messy page while we played around with it.

Crazy Ice

First the disclaimer - It is very dangerous to go out on frozen water unless you are with an adult who knows what they are doing. All of these photos were taken about five feet from the edge of Triangle, Lawrence and Spectacle Ponds where the water is only about a foot deep.

The ponds are starting to melt again, but here are some cool pictures of the crazy natural holes and gaps you could find walking around the ponds last week.

The "Ultimate" View 6

Meet Bruce and the "Ultimate" view at the Burgess office. Bruce enjoys 180 degree vistas (hence the three pictures) taking in the health center, Spectacle Pond, Basketball Court, the Purple Beech Trees and Triangle Pond. He is the custodian of the Bee Hive through the winter months (although they are not doing so well at the moment-more on that later). Bruce is busy right now making sure that a) We don't buy too many basketballs and have more than we have campers, and; b) That as many campers as possible get to enjoy the basketballs we do have. Basically he makes the big decisions, so he needs a nice view to keep him relaxed. Bruce is a great singer, so drag him along to your next campfire.