Our Weeks Activities at Lakewood

Whenever groups have meals at camp we as volunteers get free meals. With Jim's special diet, this means he usually brings his own and only takes food that works for him. This past Monday it was Martin Luther King Day and it was a long weekend so we had a group that stayed for Monday morning so we still got a breakfast. This time we had our devotions and the days work instructions from manager Neil in the dining hall. It was a chilly start to our work day but Neil still arrived wearing his shorts while the rest of us were wearing layers to stay warm. After receiving directions for the tasks our group fanned out over the camp doing their jobs. Some of the fellows removed the lumber forming that was used for the sidewalk repairs last week.

Dennis and Jim took on the job of replacing the sheeting of the maintenance sheds which contains the air compressor and gas and oil. This job of rebuilding doors  took them till Wednesday to complete, while they put on temporary hinges until new ones get bought. The painting will happen sometime in the very near future.

Tuesday morning our camp director met us and told us that Neil was in ER since Monday afternoon. He had hip replacement surgery last summer and has been dealing with an ongoing infection with it. So Neil called one of our volunteers with the days instructions and we have been going on that for the rest of the week.

With Florida being quite tropical everything grows a lot, and some plants like the palmettos need the dead branches cut off to look nice and taken care of. Sue, LaVonne and I worked outdoors Monday thru Wednesday cutting these branches. One of these morning we recruited two of the men to cut the branches high up.  They resorted to using the tractor with a bucket to do that. Looks so much nicer now.

I learned a new phrase from LaVonne - "Wooly pucker's nest" - meaning a mess of vines & branches tangled up. And we saw alot of those and it was a challenge we took on to pull these vines out of the trees so the trees don't get choked by these fast growing vines.

Thursday morning we had a sudden awakening at 5 am from a thunderstorm followed by a rotten branch falling from an overhead tree and landing on our RV roof. From the loud noise Jim was concerned about damage to the roof. But his inspection later did not find any damage.

Thursday morning five of us ladies painted a bedroom in Cardinal (2nd volunteer apartment).

How many women can find things to paint in one room?? Surprising we found walls, baseboards, door trims, closet shelves, and a closet which kept all of us busy. And what a time we had!

Friday morning Jim had a scheduled appointment at Bypass Garage in Brooksville for a new fan clutch to be installed. The truck had given us trouble coming south with overheating when pulling the trailer in stop and go traffic. The test will now come in March when we start our travels again whether this problem will be solved.

During the 1 1/2 hour appointment Jim and I went for a nice walk along a mostly residential treed street.

Before we headed home after grocery shopping we stopped in  at a U-pick strawberry farm and picked a pail of strawberries. They are very yummy!

This weekend we have one very large group of people at the camp. This group is a respite group that have children /youth who have lost a loved one in the past year and are grieving.  With our group we are probably 175 people in total at the camp.