Meadowview Castle After A Month Away.....

.....Ferns, ferns and more damn ferns! I’m convinced the word infernal is derivative from this pesky plant. In just 4 short weeks the ferns had reclaimed a larger portion of my mowed area. In fact I couldn’t see some of my pine trees cuz the blasted ferns had grown taller in just 4 weeks than the pines.
I got up to camp Friday night about 6:30 to find out that our electric meter had been blown up by the last couple weeks thunderstorms. Wanda and Chris had gotten there earlier in the day and discovered the problem and managed to get Great Lakes Electric out to put in a new meter and fix the problem except for the plug that I discovered had been fried along with the meter. Not wanting to do without my running lights I rigged up a couple extension cords to get everything working until I could get to Home Depot Saturday for a new plug assembly.
Not long after that we were eating hamburgers grilled on our new little 9 dollar table top grill. By the time we got done eating it was going on 9pm. A quick ride up to the lodge for ice cream was for naught as they had already closed up shop and went home so it was back to camp for the remainder of the day. Got a fire going and kicked back until I stumbled off to bed about 1am.I got up early Saturday (6am) and me, Bailey and Mercury took a hike around the camp ground for an hour or so. Came back, made breakfast, ate and then while Chris started mowing I went around and trimmed and pruned stuff.
About 11am we took off for Home Depot. I got my receptacle, made a stop at the Dairy Barn and headed back to camp. After we got back to camp I replaced the plug which then worked again but then found out that the extension cord to the fridge seemed to be toasted so I made plans to dig up my pcv pipe and replace the extension cord Sunday and then continued to reclaim land from the fern army until right up to suppertime. I went up to the lodge for a quick shower and then back to camp for steak and fried taters. After dinner it was back to the lodge for ice cream and then a cruise around the campground.
The rest of the evening was spent in camp. Wanda and Chris played the dice game (dunno what it’s called…) while I walked around the newly reclaimed kingdom deciding where to put my medicine wheel. After some internal debate I decided to put it around the huge stump in the flatlands and use the stump as the centerpiece of the wheel. It’s going to be a work in progress for most of the rest of this season I figure….I also am looking for a old fashioned porch swing to hang from one of the study limbs of the tree by the medicine wheel, but after looking for a couple weeks now I’m not sure it’s going to be as easy to find as I’d hoped.
Sunday morning I slept in until Mercury put his face in my face. It was almost 9am by then so I got up and started making breakfast. Eggs for the other two humans and pancakes for all us dogs….
Wanda and Chris took off about noon and at that point I started in on replacing the extension cord that seemed to be dead. I got it all dug up, replaced the cord, reburied the pipe and got everything back to normal. Later on when I tested each individual cord they all seemed to work fine but rather than stress over the work already done I just chalked it up to a loose connection somewhere from the lightening strike.
I sat down after that project was complete, closed my eyes for a minute and when I opened them back up it was 3:30pm. So I jumped back up, fired up the mower and finished up the fern attack. By the time I was done with all that and had put everything always, locked things up and shut things up it was almost 6:30pm. I stopped at the lodge on the way out to dump off the garbage and decided to get a dose of ice cream for the road.
On the way home we were making good time when all of a sudden, coming into Rothbury, there’s a State bull’s car parked in the middle of the highway with it’s lights on and flashing. I woah’d up and as we came under the bridge and around the corner we could see tow trucks and people all over the place. As we passed they were trying to get a badly beaten up Ford SUV up on a rollback along with what looked to be the remains of a decent sized camping trailer. We didn’t know it at the time of course but later found out that a 51 year old lady had died in the wreck. The husband and the grandkids with her were bruised up but still around.
When we got back in town I stopped by Butch’s Burrito’s first for something to eat before heading home to a hot shower. I spent the rest of the evening doing laundry and taking it easy.
Nothing much planned for this week. I should be working on the garage but I haven’t even finished cleaning the bike up yet from the trip to we’ll see how far I get with one before I tackle the other. Tentative plan for next weekend is to go back up to camp, now that I got all the work done…..but we’ll see what pops up, if anything, during the week before I start packing my bag.

TC

P.S.
Thursday evening we had some storms come thru with awesome cloud formations and luckily I happened to have the camera with me so here’s a couple pics to check out. Not long after these were shot it got real wet and windy for awhile. Keep in mind it was only about 7:00pm, 2 hours before sunset.