Work weekend - Quilters finish 4th quilt for Barclay

Over 5 years ago, Liseli Haines, our property manager, put out a request across the yearly meeting -- we wanted quilt squares in order to make 5 quilts -- one for each bed in Robert Barclay.

The response was amazing. There were plenty to make all 5 quilts. Hazel Haines and Liseli pieced those 1st quilt tops together and then volunteers coming to Powell House began to quilt.

The 1st two quilts took one year each. The 3rd 2 years. At the spring work weekend, we finished the 4th in one year! Here are photos of some of the volunteers from this weeks work. Young and old; experienced as well as those who had never quilted before.



These young women worked long and hard.



A new quilter!



Anita Paul, in the middle, checks for dropped stitches. It looks great.



Anita at her sewing machine, beginning to piece the 5th top together. Nan Olsen took it home with her to finish piecing the top and then we'll begin quilting again. Goal: to finish the 5th quilt before the 50th anniversary of Powell House 2010-2011.

Spring work weekend - building community

Some of our most popular weekends are our intergenerational ones -- even the work weekends. We had over 100 attenders ranging in age from toddlers to over 80 years old. There were chores that fit everyone's ability, energy and attention.




The ice storm left us with lots of downed branches. Here are 2 of our willing volunteers hard at work.



Other jobs included cleaning out the herb bed



After most of the sticks were gathered, we had a controlled fire. We moved the leaves to be composted.



The ice storm of December '08 has given us lots of firewood.



One of our annual jobs is cleaning out the gutters. This year, Brandon & Tom Glenn volunteered for the job. Carolyn Heary is in the background raking leaves.



We kept the log splitter in use for the whole day.



Reminy, in the foreground, is helping move firewood to our shed.



Jacki's wonderful bread kept us going.



Along with Martha's wonderful matzo ball chicken soup.



We also moved some of the downed tree trunks from the campground to the downed beech tree logs. We'll have a sawyer come and make them into lumber which we will later use around Powell House. Remember the cherry and butternut used in the ACC renovations?



We moved wood from the campground to our wood shed and found that several passengers were "into" tractor rides, too. Mike loves to drive that tractor.