Camp

so what do you do all year?

Today's entry in 'So what do camp directors do all year?' is Office Work, subcategory: Winter Gifts!

Every year we mail all of our campers a surprise winter gift. It is typically something small (easily mailable), one size and unisex. Being a small camp I do not have a staff of people or the resources to pay a company to do this for me so I get to coordinate this endeavor on my own! This involves verifying camper addresses, printing envelopes, printing return envelopes, printing enrollment forms, printing the winter gift letter, folding all that paper and then stuffing, stamping and sending them all out at the same time!

It is a solo job but my wife snagged a pictures of me hard at work:

Stuffing envelopes on an indo board in sweats and a flannel. Typical day in the office!

Stuffing envelopes on an indo board in sweats and a flannel. Typical day in the office!

Past gifts have included: Nalgene water bottles, Carhartt winter hats, Water Monkey bucket hats, Water Monkey ski / snowboard socks and Phunkshunwear ski / snowboard face masks. This year's gift is pretty sweet but it is still a secret until next week!

Envelopes and forms and gifts galore!

Envelopes and forms and gifts galore!

If you are feeling a bit left out because you will not get a gift just sign up to be a camper!

-Evan

Different Seasons

Camp always looks good but some days are more special than others. The first snow of the season is always photogenic. 

Fall in new hampshire

You have to sometimes get creative in late fall to have some fun outside. The ski slopes are not fully open yet, bike trails are too slick with leaves, frost and mud, and the lake is a bit too cold to play in. Add to that my 18 month old and two week old boys and finding time for an adventure is a bit limited! 

But where there's a will there's a way! Tuckerman and I found a few hours this week and we scooted over to Pawtuckaway State Park for some woods exploration where we found marshes, mega boulders and streams galore.

Nine miles of walking for me translates to around 25 miles for Tuckerman. 

Keep on enjoying the fall!

 

-Evan

Three little acorns

If you know us at all then you are familiar with our obsession with the outdoors, recycling and saving the planet. This past spring we took three acorns from a nearby oak tree and gave them some love. Just six months later those little acorns are on their way to being trees!

They were in full fall mode in early November just about ready to shed their leaves for the winter. We were stoked to see this ridiculous growth and those brilliant colors. 

We plan on planting them on our property in the spring!

so what do you do all year?

When I tell people that I own a summer camp the first question I get, without exception, is "So what do you do all year?". I love running my camp and could go on for hours about everything I do so I decided to occasionally post about the various aspects of the job of camp owner/director.

Today's category is: Landscaping, subcategory: Storm Debris.

Fall is a slow time for camp. Parents are not really looking for next summer yet, we do not start recruiting staff until the winter and it is too early to be dealing with insurance and other paperwork but the one constant this time of year is landscaping. As the trees shed their leaves for winter we have to rake and pick them all up to keep the place looking good. Occasionally mother nature throws us an extra challenge in the form of a bigger than average storm. That happened last weekend when we got pummeled with 60+ MPH gusts of wind for two days. 

When the storm had cleared one of our large pine trees had shed a lot of branches. It ended up filling my truck three times over. No complaints, though, as I thoroughly enjoy this kind of work! The area around the tree went from total debris disaster to clean and neat in just an hour or so. Landscaping is always instant gratification!

Our small property is super easy to maintain. Before I started Water Monkey I ran a large camp on over 100 acres. After one ice storm I filled the big camp dump truck over 20 times with broken tree limbs and other debris!

I miss that old dump truck! 

That is it for this installment. Check back for more insight into how a camp director stays busy all year long.