the green spot blog

Hey peeps! It's winter out. Have you noticed? (If you haven't...you might be on vacation...if that's the case...can I hang out with you?) . November seemed like a pretty mild start to our white months up until about two weeks ago when almost all of Alberta went through a period of white-outs and cold, COLD weather. During that time, camp experienced almost 18 inches of snow and -40 degree weather. Yikes! I was out on the roads when the blizzard started and experienced some white-out conditions where I couldn't see the sides of the road or even the road itself. It was very scary when the road would clear ahead of me and I would realize that I was in the on-coming traffic lane. Praise God that I got home safely! A couple days later, I was out snowshoeing and came across snowshoe tracks from Sabastian and Christoph from the day before. Because of the wind and snow, their tracks were blown over and almost gone. There were points when I couldn't even tell where...

Hey! We have been busy here at Camp Evergreen, building new cabins, serving our guest groups, training horses and preparing everything for next summer! This winter we have eleven seasonal staff staying on and we want you to meet them! Left to Right: John, Josh, Jesse,Christoph, Sebastian,Felix,Dylan,Juli,Tamara, Alana,Taylor.   Now a little about us!  ... I asked everyone to write a sentence or two about themselves. Here's what they said! Alana: Loves to try crazy things on horseback, she watches romantic movies like they are horror movies, loves to talk during meals and forgets to eat. Christoph: Likes the outdoors and everything connected with it like climbing, hajking(hiking), tracking, horseback riding and many more... Dylan: Master of awesome facial hair, could be a stunt double for Willie Robertson, loves old cars, well used guitars, and flannel. Dylan wishes he had a truck like John's. Dylan didn't choose the redneck life - it chose hi...

Despite the winter weather that has descended upon us, the cabin fever project continues to move forward.  Mennonite Disaster Service brought us to lock up stage at the end of summer.  At our Camp Evergreen Board meeting in September we decided that finishing the cabins was a top priority for next summer!  We also decided that we needed as many volunteers as possible to make this a reality.  On November 16 we had our first work day and were able to insulate the walls.  Our seasonal staff have carried on the work during the week.  The walls and ceilings have poly.  The ceiling and bunks have been started. Join us Saturday, December 7 as we move forward with our next Work Day.  Breakfast is at 8:30 a.m. and if you would like to join us for Friday night just call camp and let us know.  We're pretty confident that by next Saturday there will be no snow.........well we're confident that there will be no snow inside the cabins!  Here's C...

It's not over. Not even close. Shortly after Sir Willson ManCave's epic adventures were chronicled by the Men of Evergreen...this note and picture showed up at the Welcome Centre: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING WILSON In the form of a note received earlier today - ...and so, this strangely beloved Willson-creature has indeed fallen into the hands of the one evil lord capable of his destruction. But, this weirdo lord, unbeknownst to all but his closest minions, is secretly a master of 'both' the riddles of iron, the mysteries of the healing of all things dead, and micro-e lectronics - an "iron doctor" ... one could say. Alas, one day this "Iron Doctor" was advised and bewitched, through means of strong coffee, by his friend and peer, a maiden of iron curiously known by those who love her as Jogee? ...Jogee? Anyway, Jogee encouraged the doctor to "lighten-up" and now the doctor has oddly taken pity upon ...

--> The Life and Times of Sir Willson ManCave K2 demonstrating the Willson ManCave Warm Up As told by The Real Men of Evergreen Willson was a real Caribou, a majestic Caribou, in fact. He once roamed the wild, but was killed in a tragic hunting accident…the body was never recovered, but his head was… The real story begins with Dalhousie Youth Group. During a photo scavenger hunt, Willson was found by Dalhousie out behind the Maintenance Shop. After being used in many pranks, Willson decided it was time to settle down. After a short lived time of glory, he was forgotten, and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth, and for 3 months, Willson passed out of all knowledge. But something happened to Willson that he did not expect. He was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a Human, John Toews (The Distraction...a.k.a. Dishrack), formerly of Dalhousie. After being found, John took Willson to t...

 Well it was bound to happen sooner or later.  October 3rd 2013 will be forever known, not only as Rangers birthday, but the day Scamp met Mr. or Mrs. Skunk!  The morning went well.  We had the usual guest groups on site.  Scamp was busy running from group to group getting his "fix" of love.  We went in for lunch - a good lunch by the way - (just a quick side note here, Ranger was surprised at the number of young guests who had peas with their lunch - which also reminds us of an ice fishing joke.....) and when we came back out - Pee-u.  Scamp, our cute little Scamp somehow met a skunk at lunch and the lovin came to a quick and complete end!  He couldn't understand why the kids who showed him so much love before lunch, didn't show him any after lunch. What to do?  The thought of leaving him outside for the next three weeks was complicated by the cold fall nights.  Trying to ignore him was not working either, so we Googled skunk and ...

We are very blessed this fall to have all our hay needs donated!  A gracious and generous rancher close to Bowden, not only donated 180 (read one hundred and eighty!) large round bales, but donated the delivery to Camp Evergreen as well.  How cool is that! God continues to provide for our needs and is good all the time! Check out our new web site if you haven't had the chance.  Our 2014 dates and rates should be up in the next couple of days.

Four weeks ago, Mennonite Disaster Service came to serve us.  Serve us they did.  Words can not easily express our gratitude, but we will try.  The cabins are farther than we had hoped, and the archery range is being used in the last week of camp.  From our perspective it was great partnership.  Summer camp was not at all impacted.  Besides mosquitoes and some cold nights there really wasn't much stress. One of the biggest accomplishments was putting on our metal roof.  This will not only keep the cabins dry, but will allow us to finish the cabins right through winter. Where do we go from here?  The Board will be evaluating the progress early in fall, and our goal is to finish these cabins so they can be used by our campers next summer with as much volunteer labour as possible.  If you missed out on the opportunity to help this summer, we will be having workdays through the winter and invite you to join us. The archery range cabin being...

MDS's time here at Evergreen is winding down.  There are only two days to go!  With your help we have gone further than we had hoped.  The cabins have been perfectly set up to finish with as much volunteer help as possible.  We will let you know as soon as we can when we will be looking to work on the cabins. In addition to the cabins, MDS has done a fantastic job on our new archery range. A close up of the deck. Steps off the front that the campers will use to retrieve their arrows. We will enter from the back of the deck. Crestwood has fascia. Sunwest now has a great ramp that will accommodate campers and guests who are in a wheelchair.

Here we are in the middle of week number four.  While the outside of the cabins remains similar, MDS is still hard at work and we're hoping to keep them busy this week. Doors and windows are now in. We've started on the soffit. Bunks are underway.  The plan is to cut all the material to length and then store them in each cabin. And the archery deck and steps are almost complete.

Our final week of MDS has arrived.  Hank and Viola Remple are our leaders this week.  Don Plett, one of the MDS Board members is here as well.  The big question on all our minds is will there be enough work this week. On Monday we started putting the windows and doors in. The ramp underway on our second barrier free cabin. And we can expect some more headway on the archery range as well.

We continue to be blessed by MDS.  The weather continues to cause a little stress!  Through it all we continue to be thankful! Riverwest has been framed. The rest of the cabins have been Tyveked!  (not sure if that is even a word!) We are farther along at the end of week three than we had hoped for at the end of week four!  Windows and doors arrive tomorrow and we can hardly wait for the end of week four to see how far we've come!  We will most likely be standing beside ourselves!

We had great building weather today.  Not too hot and so far no rain!  It looks like five of our six new cabins have a green roof! Here is Riverwest first thing this morning.... And Riverwest by the end of the day.  It looks like we'll be ready for trusses on our final cabin tomorrow morning! In addition Bob Thiessen (one of our board members from Edmonton) lent us his cat!  We're not talking a small furry one as we have far too many of those already.  We're talking a Cat that Rolf works his wonders with.  Rolf spent a good part of the afternoon clearing the new archery site.  Thanks Bob for making things a lot easier!

In spite of somewhat uncooperative weather, MDS continues to move forward.  By the end of Tuesday:  - Two and a half cabins have a metal roof!  - Three cabins have a front porch!  - Riverwest has its floor insulated, sheeted and the first wall is underway!  - The archery range has just about half the deck!  - In addition five cabins have the rough electrical! Let's continue to pray for safety and good working weather.  Thanks to all who have donated to keep MDS busy.  Please continue to support our project!

Week three of MDS has begun.  In spite of the holiday, MDS rolled into camp last night with the largest group yet!  This group, except for our leaders Larry and Linda from Linden, AB, (yes that's a lot of L's) are made up entirely from King Road MB Church in Abbotsford.  We're anticipating a great week and hope that we can keep them busy! They start off the week with five of the six cabins framed.  Riverwest is the final cabin to be built. Sunwest was started late in the week and by Friday afternoon had caught up with the rest of the cabins. And finally the last pictures of Dalhousie. This week should see the metal roof on all the cabins, and the front decks built.  We will also be working on electrical.  Please continue to pray for safety on site as there is a passel of children again. Family Camp ends today at noon and then we will have our much needed staff break.  Please pray for our staff that they will return refre...