The First Weekend at Meadowview Castle for 2008

Dang, only May and I'm already falling behind.

I ended up having to work the bulk of the weekend April 26th / 27th so that the guys doing the retro-fit on my CMM could get the job finished after being there for two weeks. The weather was mostly crummy and cold anyhow so having to wait another 7 days wasn't a big sacrifice. The weather for this past weekend was exactly stellar either but after some himin' and hawin' we decided to make a run for it and just go and see what happens.Wanda and Chris got about an hour's head start on me, but we were all up there and getting dinner ready by 6ish. I made my first project gettting the "landing lights" back out and working again. To my surprise and delight there were no problems and no burned out, broken or lost bulbs!

Ri and Adam were at camp also and we all sat down to eat hamburgers and chips, demolishing 2lbs of hamburger in short order. After dinner Adam and Chris played sequence and Wanda an Ri shot the breeze while I restacked the to wood that had fallen over from the earthquake a couple weeks ago. (I failed to mention that when it happened I guess). It was about 9:30 or so when it started to rain so it wasn't long until Adam and Ri took off and Wanda and Chris decided to go to bed. I sat out on the deck, under the canopy, listening to The Boomers on the Ipod. After awhile the rain stopped, the sky cleared up and the stars came out by the millions. I soaked up the heat from the embers of the fire for awhile before giving in and heading for my pillow.

Wanda and Adam had early morning plans to drive up to Manistee to hit the Casino for awhile so I said goodbye to the wife in the 6am darkness and closed my eyes again until about 8am. At that point I was mostly awake and completely hungry so I cooked up a bunch of bacon and scrambled eggs for the 3 of us left behind. It was a beautiful blue sky morning so after we were done eating I got out the lawnmower and the chain saw and got them both ready to go. Me and Chris first went around clearing up all the fallen logs that I never got around to cleaning up last spring before the grass hid them from view. That project killed a couple hours quick and then I fired up the mower and went after the west side yard. By the time we got that all mowed and cleaned up of debris it was almost 2 in the afternoon so it was time to take that ride into Ludington and hit the Home Depot. I needed 50 ft of good rope for the tire swing I was putting up plus some other smaller items. As luck would have it, just as we were heading out of camp, here comes the wife and son-in-law back from the casino. Adam couldn't wait to show off his tax slip which showed that he'd made $1,350 for his efforts! Not bad pay for a couple hours worth of work. I'm thinking maybe I should go and try to get lucky....I could use some help with the gas fund for the summer months. $3.65 a gallon is a real kick in the butt.

By the time we got back to camp from our trip to town it was past 4pm and getting cloudy We had an excellent meal of pork chops and fried potatoes, a personal favorite. Not long after dinner though the clouds that had been building up finally decided to let go of the precipitation they were holding. Over the next couple hours the rained increased in intensity and finally about 9:30 we all decided to call it a day and just get some extra sleep

Sunday morning we woke up to frost! It was nippy to say the least. Of course, as it always happens, the propane ran out sometime during the night so the first thing I did was switch tanks and then set about to make breakfast. By the time I was done stuffing myself with bacon and pancakes it'd warmed up enough to be bareable so I set about with my project for the day, a tire swing for the grandkids when they come up in the old oak tree on the corner.

The first thing that had to be done was remove one limb that was in the way. I had no ladder so I used the next best thing, the wheelbarrow. I propped it up against the base of the tree, fired up the saw and climbed in. It gave me just enough leverage to reach the limb. The thought occurred to me about then that I'd seen basically the same thing I was doing in a Safety video years ago with bad results, but in my best "that'll never happen to me" voice I forged ahead and in about 2 minutes the limb and myself were both on the ground again.

After we got the limb cut up and moved out of the way the next trick was to get the rope up and over the 40ft high limb. I found a suitable log, tied some clothesline rope to it and taped the other end of that rope to the heavy sisal rope and after several attempts got the log up and over the limb where I wanted it. After pulling the sisal rope up and over we put the slip knot in it and pulled it tight. Ta Da!

Now, the only thing missing was a tire! Not having one in our possession at that point we jumped in the truck and headed over to the utility building by the lodge to see if there were any dead tires laying around that needed a purpose in life. Within a matter of minutes we had found our candidate, white lettered no less, tossed it in the back of the pick-up and headed back to camp.

It was at this point that we had to enlist the aid of the wife due to our inability to tie a decent knot around the tire that would hold. She came to our rescue and using one of her knitting knots put a cinch on the tire that kept it at the right height. After a couple test runs we deemed the project phase 1 complete and went and took a break.

By then it was almost noon and so Wanda loaded up the car with her stuff, 3 dogs and one junvenile deliquent and headed back to town leaving me and Mercury to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine of the afternoon. At that point phase II started with the lawnmower and clearing a wide swath from the top of the hill to the bottom in the area of where the tire would swing in any direction. After mowing it was raking time, Phase III. Mercury napped while I put on the headphones and listened to the Boomers while I raked the hillside area and made it safe for barefeet. By the time that was complete it was a bit past 3pm

I decided to do more mowing in the lowlands area, along side the road and a section where I'd like to maybe build a pond someday.....by the time I was finished with that little project I was pooped and done for the day. I packed up, locked up, jumped in the truck and headed for home.

Last night I pulled the hot rod out of the garage after supper and headed up to Quicks to see if things were back to normal with Tuesday night cruise-in's and the answer is yes! There's a new Quicks, built from bricks this time and there was around 120 cars show up for opening night of the season. We hung around until they finished calling off the lucky numbers and then came back to town, made a stop at Dairy Treat, rode around town once and then called it a day and headed for home.

Not sure what's happening yet this weekend. There's a chance Jennette and the grandkids will be up Saturday night. If not this weekend then next weekend I guess, depends on when she gets her incentive cash. I may go up to camp Friday night either way and spend at least Saturday with the chain saw again. gotta get the fallen stuff picked up before the ferns and grass take over again.

At any rate, that's it for now, time to sleep.