Dear Treetops Families,
It’s been another beautiful and busy week on and off campus! As many of you may know, we had some extreme storms predicted earlier in the week that were much milder than expected, and although our skies have been slightly affected by some of the wildfires to the north, our high altitude, occasional rain showers, brisk winds, and the air currents have moved the weather along and we have not been largely impacted like our neighbors to the south. Today is sunny and cool, with bright blue skies, and your campers are as busy as ever!
Campers enjoyed their first square dance this week, a Treetops tradition that connects generations of children and community members through song and dance. Junior Campers were thrilled for last Sunday’s Water Carnival (namely the slip and slide), and all campers have been taking advantage of a smorgasbord of activities on campus and have been heading off campus for a variety of day trips and overnights across the Adirondack region. In this third week at Treetops, we’ve watched campers deepen their relationships with their peers and counselors, strengthen their commitment and responsibility to their community, and challenge themselves to dig deeper into various skills and challenges.
On our Community Monday, Junior and Senior Campers worked together to tackle a huge task: preparing for next summer’s pigs. This required clearing wide paths for electric fence enclosures, and making sure they were free of small trees, brush, and downed branches. Campers and staff alike were astounded to see the results of our labors and proud to know that our morning of work had literally cleared the way for next summer’s pigs to live happily in the shady woods where they love to root in the ground and graze on twigs, roots, and foliage.
In the gardens, campers harvested a huge crop of garlic for our kitchens and picked ripe currants that will be used to make currant syrup and baked goods. Our flower garden is displaying its first colorful blooms, some ready to be picked and used as centerpieces for our dining tables. As the weeks progress, campers will harvest more and more fresh veggies and herbs from our gardens, filling our tables with the land’s bounty.
On the farm, it’s so special to watch campers as they get to know and bond with the animals: finding the pigs’ favorite spot to be scritched, cuddling one of the laying hens during chore time, or spending a few extra minutes to comb out a horse’s tangled mane before braiding it with care. Through tending to our animals, campers learn the importance of staying calm and moving slowly, softly, and with awareness.
In the shops, many campers are putting the finishing touches on their handiwork: glazing ceramics, painting wood shop projects, turning finished weavings into bags, pillows, or wall hangings, completing sewing projects, or crafting needle-felted creatures with colorful wool. It’s also equally important to keep the whimsy alive at Treetops! Junior Campers have been incredibly busy this week building a Gnome Metropolis—creating complex, intricate, and nature-inspired structures. These impressive constructions made of cardboard, birch bark, moss, and other items foraged from the woods provide housing, a library, a bookstore, and a cafe for our beloved campus gnomes.
Our Supers have reached a time-consuming step in crafting their handmade canoe paddles: sanding, a satisfying and necessary, albeit prolonged stage of the paddle process. They beam with pride as they carry their paddle and sandpaper from place to place, relishing the praise and compliments they receive on their impressive work.
This past week, over twenty trips ventured off-campus, offering more opportunities for campers to challenge themselves in the great outdoors—hiking higher, longer, and more challenging peaks, paddling and portaging on canoe trips, and carrying heavier packs for overnight trips. We also value trips to local and regional educational centers and museums that offer various learning opportunities about Adirondack nature, wildlife, and history. Trips this week included The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, the natural history museum of the Adirondacks featuring an exhibit of gargantuan troll sculptures, as well as the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center in Onchiota, housing artwork, artifacts, and exhibits about the Haudenosaunee culture. It’s inspiring to see so many of our campers take advantage of various opportunities to experience and learn about Adirondack history, ecosystems, and more.
Supers continued to gain responsibilities and privileges that they’ve earned by exemplifying characteristics of leadership and trustworthiness, and showing they are role models for their younger peers. One of these mid-summer privileges is the ability to have a nightly herbal tea in their own specially selected tea mug during their evening Super time. Some of the responsibilities around Camp include tableheading in the Senior Camp dining room, as well as heading down to Junior Camp after work-jobs to head a dinner table in Junior Camp, co-lead an evening activity with a counselor, and help the younger campers get settled for bed and read them a bedtime story. These nights are a wonderful way for our oldest campers to connect with our youngest, creating a shared experience between Junior and Senior Camp.
It’s hard to believe that we will be saying goodbye to our four-week friends next week after Visitors’ Weekend! Until then, we look forward to making more memories with our friends, treasuring our time together in our special mountain home, and sharing a bit of our summer experience with you all during next week’s Visitors’ Weekend!
With gratitude,
Hannah Edwards
Camp Treetops Director