I attended our Order of the Arrow chapter conclave this weekend. We had about 60 Ordeal candidates that 'enjoyed' their weekend of providing service at a local camp. We all woke up Saturday morning to frost on tents or tarps since it dropped to about 30 degrees overnight.

I really did enjoy my day of cheerful service - I got to run a chainsaw all day, making firewood from downed trees for the camp's 3 lodges. In all, the scouts stacked almost 3 cords of split wood (4x4x8 feet). Other teams put a new metal roof on a lodge, packed the summer's Webelos camp tents away for winter, and pruned trees.

The tree pruning was interesting. Everything below 6 feet was lopped off to retard fires. The hope is that a fast-burning grassfire will rip through and not generate enough heat to ignite the branches higher up. Plus, it allows scouts to walk through the woods and under the trees. Well, it looks a little too manicured to me, but I hope the fire-prevention doesn't ever get tested.

Our troop had 4 scouts and 1 adult added to the order this weekend.

Scout On