>> Announcer: This week on Friends and Neighbors.

>> Lady: The Outback Trail Commission was started in 1997.

And so from there it has just grown.

We're improving the trails, building new features, if a trails got to be refurbished or just cleaned up, we take care of all of it.

>> Man: With sabre fencing, an entire five touch bout.

I've seen them take literally 30 to 40 seconds.

It's been said that the only thing faster in the Olympic games than sabre is the 22 caliber bullet used in the pentathlon.

>> Lady: I'm becoming a part of these kids as memories.

They may not remember me necessarily, I'm not the important part.

But they're remembering the adventure of going to get a balloon.

I'm leaving behind happy memories of not just me, but of what I do.

>> Man: The neighbors are on board with it.

And I love that they have the same attitude and this what makes Camden Woods so special, the neighbors.

>> Lady: I was gonna say, we definitely could not do this without our neighbors help.

>> Man: This started 1934 after the Century of Progress, 105 acres, was a real destination point for basically the country, and it was originally called the International Friendship Garden, the International part it was for peace and friendliness between nations.

>> Man: Buckley Homestead is a 575 acre living history farm in southern Lake County.

The park is designed to celebrate the agricultural roots of southern Lake County.

>> Announcer: Doing as much as you can as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community the better off our community will be.

(upbeat music) I have a very strong connection to other students.

Everyone makes an effort to help each other.

I'll remember the feeling of being here, the feeling that I was a part of a family.

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(upbeat music) >> It's great to see people come out with their families and utilizing what's in our backyard.

There's 10 plus miles of it.

It's great to know that people really enjoy it.

And it's not just for mountain biking, it's for hiking, it's for running, it's a great workout for anyone that comes, and it's great to see them out here as well.

The Outback Trail Commission was started in 1997, and so from there it has just grown, and the trail has grown, the mileage of the trail has grown.

We have volunteers come in once a month.

They help maintain the trails, mowing, weed whacking, the upkeep of the trails.

But if somebody says, "Hey, there's a tree down at this location."

Somebody will come out and cut it and get it out of the way, keep it clear.

When we do trail maintenance days, what we like to call is OTIS, that's Outback Trail Improvement Session.

And we're improving the trails, building new features.

If a trails got to be refurbished or just cleaned up, we take care of all of it.

But basically anything we do here, we're walking in with the equipment and we're fixing it.

You know, it's exhausting work, but it's very rewarding.

(upbeat music) On Wednesdays, we hold what's called MMM, that is Midweek Mountain bike Madness.

Anyone can come, everyone is invited, the more the merrier.

It's a group ride, we all ride together, no one is left behind.

(upbeat music) The community is huge.

Because it's not only in this area, people do travel from out of town, they will come to the trail.

We would have group rides at other trails.

If throughout the week, if somebody wants to create a group and we're gonna go, they post it on Facebook, "Hey, we're gonna be writing here."

We have a Facebook group, and its Friends of the Outback Trail.

And it's nice to see, when we do have groups rides, people are bringing their kids.

And that's great, get your kids into it.

What a better way to have family time than to get together on the trail and ride the trail.

(upbeat music) A lot of people that come out and ride with us, they don't necessarily have to be members, but they will ride, they'll go to the Facebook page and let us know, what an awesome trail, great thing you have going, I wanna make a donation, help you out, keep it going.

And it's rewarding, it lets us know we're doing all that we can do for the trail and the mountain biking community, and the hikers and the joggers.

(upbeat music) There's great pride in building and maintaining trails, for everyone involved, and your volunteers that come out.

They wanna come out, they wanna volunteer, they wanna work, it's rewarding to them.

They've given back, it's giving back to your community.

Membership is huge for us because that is how we do what we can do, is through membership.

Without people and volunteers, we wouldn't have it.

So it's it's imperative to keep that going, encourage everyone, join, help us.

If we don't take care of it, you don't use it, you lose it.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Northwest Indiana Fencing Club is primarily a recreational fencing club.

We are an all volunteer group, meaning that like myself and all of the other coaches are all volunteers.

Every penny we get at the club goes into expenses, we have some of the nicest equipment that you'll see at any fencing club.

We're here just to kind of keep the sport low in cost, make it an easy entry, and then we try to support the members that we have that move on to competitions.

We have quite a few of our high school kids that compete in the Great Lakes High School Fencing Conference.

We have several that have gone on into college and or are going on into division one and division three athletics.

So that's kind of why we're here, just basically to have fun.

(upbeat music) So in fencing, there are three different blades that we use, three different weapons.

Sabre fencing, which is a slashing blade, foil, which is a point weapon and epee, which is a point weapon.

Northwest Indiana Fencing Club started out primarily as a sabre club.

Sabre is a slashing weapon.

And if you kind of think of like a cavalry soldier cutting with his blade, that's what sabre does, we cut at our opponent.

Our beginning class is typically a sabre class.

The reason we use sabre as our beginner course is primarily the history of the club, the coaches, I think we have a higher number of sabre coaches at the club, so we simply use that as our introductory class.

Foil is, I think, kind of the regal weapon, it goes back to the Kings Court, and you know, very gentlemanly type of thing, you're defending your woman's honor type of thing.

And so it's a delicate, very wimpy blade weapon with a little button on the end of it, and you're basically fencing for first blood if you were back in the King's Court.

Here, you're fencing for a little red light or a green light on our scoring box.

Epee is a heavier weapon.

And I kind of think of the three musketeers sort of the kind of heavy blade.

Again, it's got a button on the end, so it only scores with the tip of that blade.

With all three weapons, epee, foil and saber, you fence up to five.

With sabre fencing an entire five touch bout, I've seen them take literally 30 to 40 seconds.

On the odd guard line, the director gives them their instructions to start.

And quite often it's a matter of one or two seconds.

It's been said that the only thing faster in the Olympic games than saber is the 22 caliber bullet used in the pentathlon.

(upbeat music) I think all the fencing clubs that I'm familiar with are actually very supportive.

I am familiar with several other clubs, and it seems like everybody actually is trying to lift everybody else up either in their club or even in between other clubs.

Because we're primarily a recreational club, it's supporting competitive fencers, you've got beginners, they may very well be on one of our strips, and the competitive fencers may very well be on another one of our strips, so that the competitive members aren't beating up the beginners.

You will see however, the competitive members will give a lot of their time to the beginners.

And so they will go over and they will help beginners.

I think it really helps our beginners and our recreational fencers to have the competitive fencers here largely by bloodying them on the strip.

I love teaching, I love the kids, I love the adults, and I work with any age group.

I just enjoy teaching people the new sport.

And my goal is to get that one person to love the sport.

And if they walk away from here just enjoying fencing, I don't care if they go onto division one, or if they're, you know, geriatric, it makes no difference to me.

I just want to see them leave with a smile on their face.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> This all started because of my daughter who is 16 now, but when she was 10, she wanted a birthday party with balloon animals.

And honestly, it didn't occur to me that I could just hire somebody else to do that.

The only people had ever seen twisting balloons before had been clowns.

And well, you know, I love clowns, some of my best friends are now clouds, so she had one of those little kids.

So we sat down with the whole kit, and it all turned out okay.

But I was like, "There's got to be better out there."

So I went to YouTube, and I found some artists on there who were interesting, and looked at the materials that they were using and ordered all the proper tools that I needed and started following some patterns.

Like, "Okay, this is fun, this is, and I'm not I'm not bad."

I've always been a maker of things.

And this is all for her birthday party, so I go to her birthday party, and I've got these balloon animals and the moms are walking in and going, "Do you have a business doing this?"

"No, I just did it for fun."

They're going, "Why don't you have a business doing this?"

"I don't know, why don't I."

So I practiced for about a year, and then five years ago, I started at Balloontacular and we're pro.

(laughs) Basically, a mom will find me, call me, I come in, I have like, I don't call the menu per se, but I have a list of ideas with pictures for the kids, and sit down, and things that I can make quickly.

They're always welcome to order off, you know, if they want some things that I've never heard of, I will go above and beyond to create that for them, because if that's their dream, I wanna make it a reality.

What kids wanna talk about themselves, they're like anybody else.

So, you know, you start talking about their favorite colors, their favorite characters, and before you know, they're telling you stories, and then the other kids are jumping in with stories.

And then I'm doing an impression of something or doing a line from a movie, and I've got all these kids hopping in with me.

And so, we just feed off of each other, as long as you can identify with the kids that you're twisting for it.

The same goes for adults, I do the same thing with adults that you just feed off of the energy that you're given.

And you can sustain a whole party that way and never get bored.

I mean, I don't know that I've ever been to a party and been bored, because I sort of create my fun wherever I go, and will try to draw people out and over to me and creating things that they never thought were possible out of balloons.

I don't know what it is about it, but I truly, truly love the entire world of balloons and what goes along with it.

And I have a job where I walk in and everybody is excited to see me.

Nobody's ever like, "Oh no, who invited the balloon lady?"

This is the only job I've ever had like that, I don't know that there are a whole lot of jobs out there like that, that you get accolades as soon as you walk in the door.

Doesn't even matter what you've done.

As soon as you walk in the door, they see pretty happy colors, and everybody is just happy to see you.

As an artist, since I list myself as an artist, I think one of the definitions of that is being able to think of things in terms of balloon twists, to be able to look at just an ordinary object, and then see what twists you need to make to make it into a balloon.

I thrive off of a constant challenge, I enjoy having to use my mind, use my hands, and I feel like I've created something that I'm happy with, that I'm proud of.

The first party that I twisted for when I first started, very first party.

I just did balloons for his sixth birthday party.

And he was so excited to see me, and he knew exactly who I was.

And it sort of sunk in, I am becoming a part of these kids' memories.

They may not remember me necessarily, I'm not the important part, but they're remembering the adventure of going to get a balloon.

I'm leaving behind happy memories of not just me, but of what I do.

And I don't know that there's anything more gratifying than that that I've done.

You know, that's like a perfect sum up of a way to live a life for me, I guess is the only way I can think to put it.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Pondapalooza Music Fest is an event that neighbors and family come together annually, this is our eighth one.

And we help organizations and individuals battling cancer.

This is a, as I call it, is a homegrown grassroots event.

People park three blocks away, schlep their chairs in, pay a little fee at the door, and enjoy an afternoon of giving.

BYOD, bring your own lawn chair.

And it's true, that's how home it is.

Come home, come enjoy it, and have a good time and help others, that's Pondapalooza.

(upbeat music) It used to be called the giddy up games, and that's where my five or seven neighbors came together and played a game of Horse.

We all pitched in 20 bucks and we went to the local hospital, dropped off teddy bears and we bought some gift cards for people.

And then Karla and I found each other, and we purchased this house in Camden Woods.

And then we love music, I love concerts.

And I said to my neighbor, Mike Bukovsky, I said we're going to have a Pondapalooza Music Fest.

And so everything evolved to what it is today.

(upbeat music) I was on a plane with my boss from the turbo factory, and I wasn't feeling good, and we landed, and 24 hours later had cancer.

And then I went through extensive radiation and you name it, what goes into cancer, and took off some time, but never kind of diminished my morale.

And I knew ever since that point, I was gonna help others.

And we need it now more than ever.

(upbeat music) The neighbors are on board with it, and I love that they have the same attitude, and this what makes Camden Woods so special, the neighbors >> I was gonna say, we definitely could not do this without our neighbors help.

They are out here, the first year that we did this, the day after the party, you know, we're kind of dragging and we're like, "Oh no, look at all this stuff we're gonna have to clean up."

The second we came outside, all of the neighbors came outside and started helping us clean up, which I almost, I was moved to tears, I was like so thankful.

>> Not after a night of 12 hours of partying, okay.

>> I was so thankful for them.

(upbeat music) To not lose any of our Pondapalooza family, that those who are battling cancer, that they find a cure, they get, you know, go into remission, that they're here to celebrate with us next year, that's my goal.

>> And to have someone else start something like we did on their own.

>> Amen.

>> Taken up, it's a lot of work, we know it, it's a tremendous amount of work, but just go and do.

And I always say this, there's three types of people in this world, people that make it happen, people that watch it happen, and people ask, "What happened?"

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> It started in 1934 after the Century of Progress was brought over here by Dr. Warren.

And he offered to bring the garden over here and given him this space, 105 acres.

It was a real destination point for basically the country.

And it was originally called the International Friendship Gardens, and the International part of it was for peace and friendliness between nations, with 19 ethnic gardens.

And it really had a great years through the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s and then it waned a little bit as the Stauffer Brothers who were involved in it passed away.

Well, a good friend mine invited me out here about six years ago, and the garden really was open very infrequently, they had almost no people coming through.

And it wasn't really being kept up the way it should.

And I just looked around, I thought, "My gosh, why is this being done?"

And I found out about the history.

They asked me if I would get involved, and I did.

And I've helped it financially as well, because nothing worked when I got here.

It was really on its last leg.

But the bones are so good with Trail Creek going through here, and we're like in a valley of the dunes.

And with Lake Lucerne behind us, it was the bones are incredible.

I got other people on the board that had a great passion about the garden, and we started to restore it and bring it back.

Five years ago, there was maybe 1000 to 2000 people coming out here to see it when it was even the doors were open.

Now we're doing about 60,000 people a year, and we anticipate would be up to about 100,000.

And they're coming from all over Northern Indiana, we do about 60 weddings a year.

We have a lot of entertainment, a lot of educational things for children, it's really becoming a real destination point.

We're botanizing the whole garden as well, and identifying all the different kinds of plants and trees and things of that nature, and given them a history behind it.

You know, like the tulip tree, I don't know if you knew that, that's the state tree of Indiana.

So we have tulip trees, and we have all sorts of different trees and different plants throughout the garden that are being identified and modernized.

And now we have volunteers, tons of them, that wanna come and work at the garden.

We're really delighted at what's occurring, what's happening.

You're right now in the Rose Garden, that was given by the President of Persia in 1934, it's called the Persian Rose Garden.

We're having the La Porte Symphony here on August 23rd.

And the Lyric Opera is coming from Chicago on the last Sunday of August.

Because we can be six feet apart in terms of social distancing, we can have three, 400 people out here listening to the symphony, so that's gonna be very excited.

So adapt into the COVID or ADA compliant, and so we can get everybody in here can enjoy the garden.

The community has responded immensely, our membership is doubled in five months, our gates double already in five months just through May.

So we're pretty excited about the support we're getting from the whole community, not just Michigan City, but the county and adjoining counties, because that people really love it.

It's a very peaceful place.

There's a lot of beauty here, when you come out to see it.

It's pretty extraordinary.

And we're doing something positive for the community, that's, you know, back to nature.

It's not just looking into your iPhone, and to all of the technical things that children do now, they're so attracted to their iPhones and their iPads and all these games.

They come here and you don't see them doing that.

They're enchanted with what's going on, just the learning, the beauty, the peace, the tranquility, everyone needs that today.

They need it probably more today than ever.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Buckley Homestead is a 575 acre living history farm in South Lake County.

The park is designed to celebrate the agricultural roots of Southern Lake County.

The property itself was donated by the Buckley Family in the 1980s.

And they wanted the park operated and ran as a living history farm, so people could come out and see what general lifestyle and life was like in the different times we have represented here.

(upbeat music) Here in the Barnyard area, it's set to the time period of 1910.

We have a schoolhouse up the lane here, which is set in the 1900s time period.

And then we've got the Pioneer Farm which is 1850s.

(upbeat music) Each one of these buildings had a specific purpose on the farm.

Okay, the building right behind us is the granary.

This building would have stored all the feed and the inputs you needed to bring in to run the large scale dairy operation they had at the time.

The building behind us is the upper barn, and underneath it in, the lower barns.

(upbeat music) This building here is the hog barn.

Right now we have sheep in it, but it is the hog barn.

But one of the neatest things about that building is the solar lights on the top to let the sunlight in year round.

Smaller buildings on these homesteads and these farms were used for numerous things throughout the time.

It could have been used as a hired hands quarters, it could have been used as a farm office.

And it also could have been representative of what's called a day kitchen.

This was a pretty progressive state of the art operation at the time, and a lot of the stuff was sort of cutting edge.

(upbeat music) As a living history farm, we try to keep the types and kinds of animals that would have been here in the early 1900s.

So we look at literature, we look at photograph, and then we try to keep to that type.

So we try to keep dairy cows, and we try to keep the type of cow they would have had.

When it comes to sheep, we raised wool sheep, because that's what they would have raised in the 1900s.

And one of my favorite animals is chickens.

And we've actually found some literature where the Buckley Family was looking for a specific breed and type of chicken in 1920, and we able to source that and bring it in.

So all our animals in breeds are types and kinds would have been here or could have been here in the 1900s.

When you visit a historic property, whether it be you know, a national historic monument or a living history farm, such as Buckley, it's always nice to put yourself in the mindset of a person who is living in the time period that you're visiting, because then you can appreciate what their life was like, what it was like to get up in the morning, you know, what their living accommodations were, what it was like to go to school, and the really, really immerse yourself in that idea.

(upbeat music) >> Announcer: Doing as much as you can as quickly as you can, is important to me.

Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Almost every single professor I've had, I'm on a first-name basis.

By building that relationship with faculty, I was able to get involved with research.

It's one thing to read about an idea and a book versus physically doing it and seeing results.

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