One Week In May Makes a Big Difference

Man, when we were up camping the previous weekend there was a hint of green in the trees but this past weekend when I went up Saturday for the day it was a different world. The leaves were mostly out, the grass I'd mowed last weekend was already up a couple inches and the ferns were popping out of the ground, almost overnight it seemed. A little bit of warm weather goes a long way this time of year. We'd kinda planned on going up for the weekend again but as the week wore on plans changed and I ended up going up for the day Saturday just to keep on with the work detail.

I spent most of Thursday and Friday evening switching the tires from the van to the pickup and vice versa. The van ain't being driven much these days with the motor issue so I decided to take the almost new tires on the van and put 'em where they'd do the most good. Not only does the extra tread make the truck drive better, the shiny chrome wheels make it look pretty spiffy too! :-) While I was going thru the tire switching process I was contemplating what if's with the van and decided over the weekend to put a for sale sign on the ole girl and see if I can get what I figure I should get out of her. I still need to wash the outside and vacuum the inside, clean the windows and get her looking as good as I can then we'll see if there's any interest.

Anyhow, Saturday I got up fairly early and was up at the campsite by 10:30am. I spent the entire day going from one project to another and got quite a bit of stuff done. Put in the lights on the other side of the driveway and started burying the wire....didn't get that part done all the way though......I drilled holes in my posts and put in the eyebolts that will eventually hold the chain or cable or whatever I get to string across the driveway entrance when we're not there. I took another load of firewood up with me and got all that stacked up nice and neat. I spent several hours with the chainsaw running trying to diminish the size of the brush pile. I got rid of about a 1/3 of it, there's more wood in there than it looks like from a distance.

By the time I needed a break from the chainsaw It was almost 5:00pm so I took a hike up to the lodge on the offchance there might be somebody there in the kitchen. When I got there I found I'd stumbled into the middle of a birthday party for laverne, one of the ladies that helps run the lodge, so even though there was no one cooking hamburgers I ended up eating very well....sloppy joes, meatballs, potato salad and even a piece of chocolate birthday cake.

After the inpromtu feast I headed back to camp to get a little more work in while there was still light to see by. At one point during the evening there was about 8 / 10 deer across the road, grazing on the fresh, green spring grass out in the meadow. It was almost 9:30 before I'd gotten everything put away and locked up and fired up the truck for the ride home. Got back to town right about 11:00 and then after a half hour power nap in my chair downstairs I woke up and ended up downloading music until almost 4 in the morning.

Sunday morning came too early cuz of the late night so it was almost 10:00am before I had the bike fired up for the Mother's Day trip up to Big Rapids. I went by myself and tried to use the ear buds hooked to the Ipod for some music on the way, but it didn't work real well between the lack of volume on the Ipod and the wind noise coming in the helmet. The weather was a tad on the brisk side so by the time I got to the folks house I was chilled. It took a half hour and a cup of hot cocoa to stop my hands from shaking. We spent the afternoon talking and spent alittle time on the computer and had a good meal to celebrate the day. Before I knew it, it was 5:00pm and time to make the return trip. I was hoping for warmer weather on the way back but it didn't happen and in fact the nearer I got to the lake the chillier it got. I made a stop on the way back at John's Produce, the place where I bought the outhouse from, and did some shopping and surveying for a future trip. I bought a genuine, authentic, metal ammo box in lovely army green that I plan to use in the campsite outhouse as a place to store Toilet paper where the damn mice can't get to it. Let's see 'em try to chew their way thru an metal ammo box! By the time I got home I was chilled again so I made some supper and then took a hot shower. And that's about it for this past week. Got plans to go to camp for the weekend again this coming weekend but it's up in the air until we see what the weather's gonna be, but I'll probably go up one day at least just to continue with the maintainence program. We'll see how it goes.

TC