Home for the Holidays

The snow came and went yesterday, but there is no doubt that winter is here. We have completed our 2 week period, always a kind of weird time of the year, between the Thanksgiving break and holiday hiatus we give our staff. This year, some the drudgery of this 2 week period was eliviated by two simple words- Secret Santa. I will admit that, with an 18 month old in the house, my excitement for the holiday season is as high as it has been since I was a child myself, but it seemed that everyone on the staff had fun with this year's holiday plan per PMOEC. We all drew a name and had to give three gifts to our selected person; one that cost less than $5, one that was a re-gift and one that we made. We revelaed who we were giving gifts to at our first annual PMOEC-Formal-Holiday-Party that Laura and I hosted. And today? Only a few PMOEC employees are around still arounf. Others have left the North Country to reconnect with family all over the East Coast. It is a welcome break in our schedule- a time that we all reflect on how PMOEC has changed our paradigm, how excited we are about tour profession and how much we are looking forward to coming back to PMOEC for an incredibly unique winter teaching experience in 2012. This will be my last post of 2011 (sorry Molly), so I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season and I hope we all have a great start to the new year. Until then...

Reflecting

Cutting wood. Housing renovations. Pasture maintenance. It is the time of year when we dedicate our full selves to work projects. I am always very introspective about this time of year as, by trade, we are educators; and yet, we must do these things to survive the winter and into the future. Thankfully, any fear that I have about our staff getting into a rut is quelled every morning when they happily invest themselves in the jobs of the day. We have also had a chance to spend some time reflecting on the first 4 months of all of this staffs time at Pok-O. Things move forward and, collectively, I am optimistic about the winter and getting back into teaching. In the meantime, for those of you who are pining for the traditional days of PMOEC as a premier outdoor education center in the Adirondacks, check out this video posted by a group who came to se us a few seasons ago. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/8WumPgSRIxg

We are great adopters!

The end of the fall season took a long time to truly finally happen, but no matter how you cut it, the week of Thanksgiving definitively means the fall outdoor ed season has ended and the winter outdoor ed season has begun. We bid a fond farewell to Patrick Duvall as our winter staff shrinks by one member every year, meaning one of our fall staff instructors has to go . This is one of the parts of my job I dislike the most, but it has to be done. Patrick was an incredibly valuable part of our fall staff; his vigor for oration, his love of learning and his passion for board games will be missed. We hope to have him back in the spring, but recognize that someone else would be well served to add him to their staff and, thusly, wish him the very best. At the very end of the fall season we also hosted an incredibly successful community event- Pie and the Sky. Folks came to our site, made their own pizzas, went out to build a scale model of the solar system while their pizzas were cooked for them and came back into the warm confines of the Pok-O-Queen to enjoy their culinary creations.
Also, as the mild temperatures have given us more time to focus on outdoor work projects as the fall has crept into December, and this year we reached our goal of 3 cleanings of our Adopt-A-Highway section of road south of Willsboro. It was an incredibly satisfying feeling to get this done, making a contribution to our community. Thats all for now. Pray for snow!