Oh Dear, Oh Deer

We had our first Campfire of the season on Wednesday night. I preserved my unbroken sting of one-match-fires and, as usual, we sang songs, told stories and roasted marshmallows.

At the end of the program, when almost everyone had gone in and I was about to put out the fire, I looked up and saw a deer and her fawn. I grabbed The Flip Camera and shot. I tried to get close, but mom went into protective mode and looked like she might charge. Then, someone came walking down the road and spooked her. She jumped the fence leaving her fawn behind! I watched for a while, but didn't see when (or if) they reunited. My wife has already rescued and brought home a baby goose this summer (we took it to a sanctuary), but I wasn't going to try to corral the dear into my Toyota Camry. Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwmkGK0q_6M

A Day at the Beach

Some days, my job is no picnic at the beach.

And some days it is very literally a picnic at the beach.

Stone Gardens Teamed up with Wiggins Place for a day at Mentor Headlands. Many thanks to Tracy and Jenna for making all of the arrangements and bringing the food!
(Make sure you scroll all the way down and see the video.)

After warnings of thunder storms, the weather turned out to be perfect. We ate in a reserved pavilion, and then set up beach chairs on the sand. Most people walked on their own to the chairs.

Mentor Headlands also provided us with a special beach wheelchair which enabled us to move some of our residents over the sand easily. The chair looks like a funky little dune buggy or moon rover.

A couple of brave residents - one from Wiggins and one from Stone - put their bare feet in the cool waters of Lake Erie.

And here's about 3 minutes of video. The wind made it a little hard to hear some of the audio, but I think you'll get the gist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jPpvoG1zXw

A Night at the Office

I know I haven't blogged in a while. Part of the reason is that I've been on vacation, and part of the reason is all of the office switching and makeovers we've been doing. None of the reason is that we haven't been doing things at Stone Gardens. That is to say, we have been doing a lot! And I will catch up on blogging over the next few days.

In the meantime, I'll show you some pictures of the office. I'm still in the same space I was in before (first floor across from the Ivy Room). But the whole space has been cleaned out, repainted and rearranged. And I now share the space with David Walker, our Dietary GM. Or maybe he shares it with me.

If you've ever been here and seen my office, you may remember the angels. (Yes, I meant angels and not angles.)

They've been there since before I got here seven years ago. They were the decorating inspiration of my excellent predecessor Kathleen Betlejewski, currently the very excellent Assistant Director of Activities and head of the Creative Arts Center at Menorah Park. You can see in photo above where I tried to peel them off seven years ago. They insisted on staying, so I lived with them.

But now...

So, the office has a new look. We're still working on the finishing touches, but here it is at the moment: