May Flowers

The April showers brought us May flowers! The Mayapple, Jack in the Pulpit, Trillium, Trout Lilly, Virginia Bluebells, Bloodroot, Sharp Lobed Hepatica, and many others are up giving color and delicate beauty to the forest floor. And, of course, the Garlic Mustard is up and carpeting numerous areas. This is an invasive plant that spreads like crazy, drowning out the native wildflowers. We pull it up every chance we get, but the task is too daunting.

We have an opportunity for all groups visiting Covenant Harbor, one that you could use symbolically and to give back to this place. Groups have the opportunity to plant a tree on site, we provide the tree and shovels and the spot to plant. You just dig and plant. Contact Peter or Constance if you are interested.

This next week we have the privilege of working with Rockford Christian School (Rockford, IL) in our Outdoor Education program. Other groups joining us for the day include the Lake View Church mission team (Stoughton, WI) and Thompson Jr. High (Oswego, IL). This is the last of our "light" weeks of programming until mid-November! There are few days open, so if you are at all interested in coming with your group, call us now!

End of April

It's the last days of April! We are in early part of the fair weather business. This next week we will provide Outdoor Education experiences to St. Thomas More School (Elgin, IL) and Luther Academy (Rockford, IL). We will also be providing provocative Team building experiences for Northbridge Church's leadership (Antioch, IL), St. Paul of the Cross School (Park Ridge, IL), Milton H.S. (Milton, WI), Faith Christian School (Williams Bay, WI) and Covenant Harbor's own Mom's & Daughter's retreat.

We had a great day earlier this week as a Snake Road Adventure Center staff experiencing what our groups experience. We actually did some team building as a group! It was fun and helped us develop better avenues of communication and understanding. Hopefully you will benefit from this indirectly as we have the opportunity to work with you and your group! We also had a great time working with the sixth graders of Thompson Middle School (St. Charles, IL). Thanks for your hard work, laughs and participation!

April Showers...

The weather sure has been, um, err, different! We've had it all -- sunny and in the 70's and winter storms with blowing snow. Our spring wildflowers are a bit confused, but trying hard to make us believe it really is spring.

But, our busy spring season has begun! We finished a good round of staff trainings last week and have a good crew of newer staff and some who are returning. This week we have Sandburg Jr. High here from Elmhurst for their 7th grade outdoor education trip. This last weekend we worked with the Elgin YMCA father/son retreat. Groups coming in the next week include Fellowship of Faith (McHenry, IL), Trailmates (Crystal Lake, IL), Lombard YMCA (Lombard, IL), Fox Point Lutheran Church (Whitefish Bay, WI), Thompson Middle School (St. Charles, IL), New Trier (Winnetka, IL) & Harper (Chicago, IL) High Schools, and the University of Illinois-Chicago Business School.

We are looking forward to warmer weather and hopefully to see you here!

Mapling March

We have marched through the month of March, mapling all the way. Maple tours are completed, sap collected (over 1000 gallons), syrup cooked (20 gallons & 100 hours of cooking), lines & bags cleaned and Maple Fest celebrated. This year's Maple Fest had perfect weather and we had over 1800 people on grounds for the day and served over 1350 meals for our all you can eat pancake breakfast. If you weren't here, you missed a great day. The Lake Geneva Animal Gardens talking bird show was a big hit, the helicopter was consistently busy giving people rides, the climbing tower and giant swing were busy, many came by for an in depth maple tour, many families took advantage of our summer camp open house to meet staff, see facilities and ask many questions (20 pre-registered for camp!) and the vendors at the craft fair had great foot traffic and some had good sales. We had over 90 volunteers here to help make the day possible and somewhat sane. Their help was a blessing and much appreciated! We are looking for more volunteers to add to our list for next year. Mark your calendar for next year's event -- March 30, 2008!

Elegant Farmer & Maple Tree Tapping

We now have about 100 trees tapped and are patiently waiting for our vats to fill with the sweet sap of our maple trees. Once we reach an inertia of 500+ gallons of sap collected we will begin cooking it to make our unique brand of pure maple syrup. Maple tour groups have been calling and booking their tour. We now have over 20 groups booked and there is room for more. If you are interested in a tour, please contact Constance at 262-248-3600, ext. 324 or via email at ccollier@covenantharbor.org.

On the first three Saturdays in March Covenant Harbor will have an information table set-up at the Elegant Farmer (http://www.elegantfarmer.com/) in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. We will be there from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Please stop by and say hello, we would love to see you!