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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Iceball??

We realize that lots of the posts are a little "Burgess-Centric", so we thought we would get a photo of Hayward up here. Walking through Hayward on Sunday seeing the Basketball Court look like this, had us thinking of some of the awesome creative caps we could do. That's if it were not for things like broken legs, bruised hips and the fact that there is no nurse on camp right now. Some ideas are just best kept as ideas.

Tracks in the snow

Most of you will know, by the fact that you have to dress like the Michelin Man just to let the cat out, that large parts of the Northern Hemisphere are a tad cold at the moment. Camp got some fresh snow on Thursday and the super cold temperature has meant that it is still perfect powder. Cape Cod is a bit too flat for skiing or snowboarding, but there have been some cross country skiers out and about. It is also perfect for tracking. Here ar some shots of tracks we found around the old orchard and ball field at Camp Burgess.

Small mammal who knows where they are going..............

Small mammal who knows not where they are going............

Mice love log piles.........................

And foxes love mice.........................

Eastern Whitetailed Deer...................

The Deer's favorite restaurant.............................

This is not where the deer keep their coffee beans..................

Where the mouse leaves out the trash......................
Mouse highway...................................

The Purple Beech

One of the early names that we bounced around for this blog was “The Purple Beech”. The two Purple Beech trees that grow near the Burgess office, next to the old pump-house, are beautiful trees. One is both tall and broad, growing in the full sun, while the other has had to adapt. It has grown in the shade of the pump-house and first tree, sending out long crazy branches to catch the sun where the rays sneak past the neighbors. They're perfect for swinging and climbing on.
One of the cool things about knowing these trees well is that on a cold and miserable day in January, when the trees seem bleak and bare, you know that things will soon brighten up.

A wee stroll around camp...

With the temperature being a balmy 16F with the wind chill, we couldn't resist a wee stroll around the place this lunchtime. Here are some a few shots of a sunny winters day on Spectacle Pond.

We promise we'll tidy up before the summer.........

Leftovers from the December storm...............

Polar bear swim?.................................

How about the Spectacle Challenge. Bring your own dry suit, ice axe and throw rope......