Weekend Retreat
>> Monday, October 3, 2011 –
church,
nature,
photography,
wildlife
Oh, my, was September ever busy! But this past weekend I had a chance to relax by sleeping in 34-degree weather with no heat, hiking for 3+ hours, and laying out in the woods for three hours at night in just a sleeping bag and a tarp while I waited for a dog to find me.
?
Yes. That was my weekend. But it was a lot more fun than you might imagine at first blush. Last weekend was the annual church retreat at Camp Lael, which is situated in a beautiful setting near Lapeer, Michigan. It abuts pastures and farms, and includes mixed forest, an inland lake, and various wetland and swamp areas that make it a nice place to experience almost every type of landscape Michigan has to offer, with the exception of the lakeshore formations you can see along the Great Lakes.
The trip to camp included some driving rain and lots of construction, but once we got there and got out of the persistent alternating drizzle and rain we warmed ourselves by a big fire and roasted hotdogs and marshmallows for a late dinner. When my boys and I went to our cabin to bed down around 11:00pm, we found that the heat I had turned on hours earlier had not worked. Hmmm. This wasn't a problem for our furry dog who we'd left waiting in the cabin. She is from Russian and German stock, after all. And we figured that within our toasty sleeping bags inside an insulated building we would stay warm. I mean, Laura Ingalls Wilder woke up with snow on her quilt in a frigid room in winter and survived, right?
And we did all survive. But it was mighty hard to make ourselves get out of our beds and get dressed in the freezing cabin. It had gotten down into the low 30s at night and we would later discover that one of the windows was cracked open and wouldn't latch shut. But once we got moving we found that a beautiful day awaited us. The rain had stopped, the temperature was supposed to hit the low 50s, and the sun was scheduled to make an appearance.
After breakfast we headed to the chapel and heard a short, compelling meditation on thanksgiving from Pastor Zach. Then we started a photo scavenger hunt based on words we had to look up in Scripture. And this scavenger hunt drove the rest of my day. We collected many of the photos quite easily by lunchtime. But the harder ones (mostly the animals) I set off on my own to discover in the afternoon while Zach was putting our son down for a nap and our other teammate took a nap as well. While they were in the cabins, I took my dog Sasha on a long walk through the woods and found a few missing items, but the animals eluded me (which isn't surprising since I was walking a carnivore on a leash).
I dropped the dog off in the cabin to nap with Calvin then started off on my own to "collect" some birds. I saw plenty, but most were not on the list of "unclean" birds that the Israelites were not to eat found in Deuteronomy 14. I did manage to get photos of herons and a vulture (though that one was quite blurry), and two deer, along with a few other things I was missing. And during my 3 hour hike I also saw beautiful asters and goldenrods, berries and rose hips, towering trees in a forest carpeted by pine needles, soft grasses with nodding seed heads, a small flock of wood ducks, a nature center nestled in the wooded hills, swamps and wetlands dotted with dead trees and surrounded by cattails and reeds, and lilypads floating lazily upon the surface of the lake.
Our church was not the only group using the campgrounds that weekend. There was also a large group of rescue dog trainers and handlers plus their many dogs who were training on the grounds. So every once in a while I would run across a few people in bright yellow coats and a German shepherd, bloodhound, black lab, or some other dog. Saturday evening we were approached by a couple of the rescue dog people who were looking for two volunteers to help with a nighttime test. A yellow lab named Tigger was taking a test to get certified in nighttime search and rescue and they needed two strangers to lay down in the woods at night, keep perfectly still and quiet, and wait to be found. Dave and I volunteered and our spouses graciously assented.
So that's how I ended up in two pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, three t-shirts, two sweatshirts, a coat, a sleeping bag, and a tarp, lying in goldenrod at the edge of the woods at 8:30pm, looking up at the stars and the crescent moon, listening to the trees in moving in the slight breeze. I fell asleep off and on, and was woken up once by the sound of the bell on Tigger's collar and the sound of panting. Then the sound receded and all was silent again. Tigger had found me and was going to tell her handler. I checked the time. 10:03pm. I would be "rescued" very soon I was sure. But then I wasn't. I fell asleep again, woke up, fell asleep, woke up, checked the time. 10:59pm. I fell asleep again. Eventually I heard someone calling my name. The exercise was over and they had come to pick me up and bring me back to "civilization."
Poor Tigger. I met her back at their base and she looked sad. I'm fairly certain she found me, and Dave is fairly certain she found him (twice). Either she didn't indicate to her handler or her handler just didn't read her right. But I don't think Tigger passed her test. I finally got to bed around midnight.
Sunday morning we all rushed out to get on the road as soon as possible to get to church on time. During the drive I saw several birds from our scavenger hunt list (crows, hawks, gulls) and the rising sun lit up the yellow fields and the maples that have started to turn orange and red. I realized it was suddenly October and fall is most definitely in full swing. The months pass, one into another, and the earth moves through its set phases with no help from us. God holds each bird, each seed, each breeze, each sweet, sad-eyed dog in His grip and keeps everything spinning.
When I reflect on what I am thankful for, as Zach asked us to do this weekend, I count among my blessings all those tiny miracles of the seasons. I am thankful for my little kitchen garden and the opportunity it has given for my son and I to work together and the good food that has come from it. I am thankful for the life cycle of plants, from seed to roots to plant to flower to seed. I am thankful for those encounters I had in the woods with nervous deer. I am thankful for the giant herons lifting off as I approached and lighting back down a little ways away. I am thankful for heat (ironically, when we came home our heat wasn't working either!) and repairmen and money to pay for it all.
I am thankful for every small blessing. But most especially I'm thankful for these two blessings.
