Jack and Charlet's Blog

Today we were out reconnoitering the upcoming handcart trek route with an agent of the Environmental Agency. He had been informed by a farmer whose fields we would be going through that due to the threat of hoof and mouth disease, out trekkers would have to be equipped with special sanitized footwear. So he found a detour that would allow us to avoid the problem. Here is a picture of Sister Pemberton showing the point where the detour starts. Elder P. took the picture with his camera and here it is. Isn't she just the cutest little grandma that you ever saw. I do love her! 

She is standing in front of a small pile of aluminium (say al-you-min-ium in England) irrigation pipe and an large circular abandoned bit of rusty farm equipment.

This evening, after hosting the local Ward's traditional Fourth of July Celebration at Camp Liahona where we serve as volunteer Camp Directors, we sat in our back yard and watched the fireworks. It all seems very normal except that we are in the nation whose tyranny caused the Declaration of Independence to be written in the first place. Not only that: one item among the objections listed by the declarers was that England had stationed a standing army in the colonies in a time of peace. But the fireworks we watched came from canons on the local Royal Air Force base which is staffed and operated by the USAF - the United States has a standing army in England (and everyone is happy about it).

These strange and wonderful facts illustrate the quirks of history, the perplexities of the nations and the fact that these two nations have been and remain sisters. There is also the reminder that the English in 1776 didn't exactly like what King George III was doing to them either. We have found that most of the people here have absolutely no resentment toward Thomas Paine (who was born in Thetford, a 30 minute drive from here), the US, or our celebration of our independence from them. They are quick to say something like: "And it was a good thing too because the US has saved us from destruction twice in the last century."

The reason the local Ward has a traditional Fourth of July celebration here in England is that the Ward boundaries encompass three RAF bases staffed and operated by the USAF. There are enough Mormons among these airmen that 80% of the Thetford Ward is American.

It is sobering to note that today, 2 and a third centuries later, we have leaders in the US government making statements like "We don't want to waste a good crises." To suppose that these people are unaware of the fundamental Marxist nature of such a comment is probably a dangerous choice at best.

Jack let Charlet go first, of course, so all you see is his nose, of course.  

Elder Oaks of the Area Seventy described a program implemented in Europe that has increased membership by 22%. This confirmed our testimony that we need to grow our little camp to serve more youth. Part of that is building cabins to extend the usage into spring and fall.

We emptied, moved and then reorganized the storage containers that hold all of our equipment and supplies. Here are the two farm fork lifts doing the final placement of the lake storage for the row boat, kayaks, tents, archery, etc. 

The miracles just keep coming. Everything we need just "happens" to show up just when we need it. Someone, somewhere is scheduling all this and we just hope we don't get in the way of it. Most of them are relatively small in consequence, but are incredibly timely and have saved thousands of pounds and many many hours of work.

Oh yes, the volunteers just keep coming. We have logged over a hundred hours so far in May. That amounts to having a third person by our side for the month.

We needed good "foundations" for the new cabins that will soon be erected - the camp first ones - so we talked with local farm equipment people about using discarded tractor tires. They suggested we might prefer discarded tractor tracks. These are long cleated belts that work like the tracks on a army tank or crawler. By magic they turn out to be exactly the right size so that each track cut twice covers a 5 by 15 area of soil completely. A set of them covers the 10 by 15 footprint of our new cabins completely sealing the moisture (and the rabbits, moles and badgers) under the cabin. "But wait, there's more." These are huge, heavy belts of rubber and steel 2 1/2 ft wide and 30 feet long. The farmers have to pay people to take them away. We made a deal - they will cut and deliver them to our specification at no cost to us at all.

One of the most dramatic little "coincidences beyond belief" was that after setting up the table and chairs in the kitchen/dining area one evening, we sat down and talked about how great it would be if we had another 80 chairs. That would allow us to provide chair seating for the whole camp for dining and free up all the benches for permanent placement around the camp fires and in the wood for resting spots along the trails and in the sacred grove. The next morning, our Bishop called and said he had ordered new chairs for the Chapel and they had arrived unexpectedly early and he needed to get rid of the old ones fast. Four hours later we had 140 more chairs in camp. Our prayer for chairs took less than 24 hours, and we got extras for other uses we hadn't even thought of yet. The picture shows only about a third of them.

We have also removed the understory and several small trees from the new cabin site now named Zion's Hill. We have a small budget for cabins and we are hoping and praying to get at least 4 that will sleep 8 each. Our largest group so far will be just over 70 people so our 5 old tents and 4 new cabins will do.

This particular field in one of the Church's farm fields near our home. Rape seed is the source of Canola Oil.

Today we had another great service project at the Camp. Thirty-five US airmen came and did a raft of little projects for us: reset fence post, set new posts for kitchen outlets and the Spider Web challenge, cover kitchen "floor" with wood chip, fill rabbit burrows, etc. Mostly they hauled and burned brush left over from last week's project. Here you see the  guys carrying one of about 30 logs that needed to be moved and stacked. We had a group doing slash and burn of last year's reeds in the lake shallows, another group moving potato bins into place for fire wood boxes at the fire rings. What a crew!

At noon we took a break, fed them sloppy joes and sent them back into the woods to work. They were a happy, industrious lot, full of energy and muscle. We made them sleep well that night because they burned a lot of calories moving tons of wood of various types and sizes. It was another beautiful and productive day!

Today over 40 people showed up at 9:00 am to help with tasks at Camp Liahona. We had a crew build this fire ring while another crew built this picnic table. 

Elsewhere, we had 4 chain saws going and 20 people dragging bush to trailers where it was hauled to the large group fire rings to be burnt. We can't burn anywhere except on these concrete pad because the fen soil will catch fire and burn (smoulder) and travel underground and generally wreck havoc. Wood large enough for fuel was cut and stacked for later use. One group hauled a large trailer load of firewood home to a family that needed the heat it would afford them.

Here you see one of the tree and brush crews working out a problem with a large dangerous tree they had just felled. The Stake President is on the left and next to him a professional arborist who lent his expertise to making the camp safer and more sustainable.

A few acres were cleared of Elderberry so that we can get our mowing equipment into the areas, keep the stinging nettle at bay and encourage the grass to take over. At noon, the camp provided "sloppy joes" to keep the volunteers going.

Drove to Feltwell to post a letter and pay the garage for restoring our van from a 2 speed back to a 5 speed.

The place was recently completely remodelled and was beautifully done in natural wood, including the step down out of the shower. 

For breakfast, we had a traditional English one. Fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, bacon (like Canadian bacon), sausage, fried egg, wheat toast with jam or jelly. After the big meal we had the evening before at The White Horse pub, we were stuffed and ready to go all day.

One of the homes we inspected was a 500 year old hunting lodge called Kelsale Hall Lodge. 

Kelsale Hall was a large, manor house back then, about 10 miles East of this hunting outpost. The structure itself was in remarkably good condition, considering its age. It needed a lot of work though. Ceiling plaster was separating from the lath behind and a couple raised panels in the front door had rotted clear through leaving a small hole in the corner of each of them. We are hoping it will not be too expensive to replace the two raised panels in order to save the very old door which is nearly 4 feet wide and barely 6 feet tall. Here is the old hunting lodge with a old wing added on one end. Many of the windows need to be replaced and the brick work needs to be repointed to keep the rain out. If you look carefully at the far end, you can see a change in the bricks there also where an extension was added some years ago. It is amazing that these old buildings have so little problems with foundations cracking. A two story brick has a lot of weight. The old builders obviously knew how to do it right because we had to really study the outside walls carefully to find a couple of cracks and those were from lower windows to upper ones.

On the way home in the afternoon, we took a few pictures because the scenes were so classic for this area. Here is a couple Englishmen out for a stroll in the evening, a scene down a typical narrow highway and one of those late afternoon landscapes that looks like it should be a picture puzzle. You see a small farmhouse 

in the distance nestled among the mixed forest of broad leaf and conifers, the mighty oaks standing in the hedged winter pasture with grass in tiny hummocks all beneath that unsettled sky that so often graces these picturesque vistas.

We are just grateful to be of service and wish we could do more. There is certainly much more to be done.