A Weekend at the Castle
I’ve been meaning to write all week but between painting the garage, cleaning up the bike and snoozing during the evening, the week kinda got away from me.
Anyhow, I got out of work Friday, came home and loaded up the truck, grabbed Mercury and Bailey and headed out of town. We made a stop in Hart at the grocery store for some basics and then made it to camp just about 7:00. I started cooking some dinner right away while I got things opened up and organized and it wasn’t long before I was dining on macaroni and cheese with polish sausage & corn on the cob. I was hungry so it tasted pretty darn good. After my plate was clean we headed up to the lodge for some ice cream. By the time we got back to camp it was getting dark so I got a good fire going and we hung out close by until about 11:30 when I decided to call it a day and get some good sleep.
Saturday I woke up about 8am and while I made breakfast for me and the boys I vowed that I wouldn’t run myself ragged all weekend. It’d been a month since I’d been up to camp but because of the really dry weather we’ve had the grass hadn’t hardly grown at all and there were only a minimal number of ferns so I got out the weed wacker and cleaned up the whole west side in less than an hour.
Next thing was to fire up the lawnmower and mow the flatlands area around the pines. That was about the only place where the ferns had really grown since my last visit. It took awhile to clean up the whole flatlands area and then I got the bright idea to take some of the stakes I’d been carrying around in the truck since the Spread the Music concert last month and Hammer one in at each pine tree as kind of a height and placement marker. I may have to do something more before it snows but that’ll do for now.
After I was done with the mower I got out the chain saw next to clean up a mess that someone made…somebody cut down the bush / tree that was on the corner since I was last at camp. I know why they did it…..for visibility, but it still ticked me off a bit because not only did whoever do it, do it without asking, but they didn’t have the decency to clean up the mess they made. They just cut the limbs down and left it all in a big pile right on the corner. So, I drug all the limbs out of the pile and cut off the ends and piled up the logs for firewood. By the time I got done with that the chainsaw blade was in need of sharpening and I was pooped so I called it a day about 4:00 and headed up to the lodge for a shower and some ice cream. I putzed around camp after I got back until about 7 and then I made dinner for the 3 of us….some hamburger helper and more corn on the cob. After dinner we hit the lodge again and then took a ride around the grounds for awhile. When we got back to camp it was time to start a fire and kick back. I got the guitar out and picked on that for awhile. Spent some time trying to recall all the chords and words to “These Days”. If I could just sing it without making myself cringe I’d be a happy camper. It was after midnight before I gave it up and went to get horizontal.
Sunday after breakfast (Cinnamon rolls and orange juice) I decided to start in on the Medicine wheel project so I grabbed the shovel, wheel barrow and saw and headed to the site. I spent the bulk of the day working on it and I got the frame pretty much in the ground. Next step is the walkways and then digging up the sod to put the painted rocks in each of the 4 sections. I may or may not get that far this year. I’m also going to work on the centerpiece during the winter. It’ll be a 3 foot in diameter piece of wood that I’ll burn the face of a compass on and then clear coat it a dozen times so it’ll handle the outside and then next spring I’ll attach it to the stump. Don’t ask me why I’m doing it…I just like being creative and designing and building things. Here’s a pic of the one out at the Ben Riefle Visitor Center in the Badlands that gave me the idea to do my own…..it's in pretty bad shape, needs to be weeded and the rocks should be white for North, red for East, black for West and yellow for South.
Anyhow, I got out of work Friday, came home and loaded up the truck, grabbed Mercury and Bailey and headed out of town. We made a stop in Hart at the grocery store for some basics and then made it to camp just about 7:00. I started cooking some dinner right away while I got things opened up and organized and it wasn’t long before I was dining on macaroni and cheese with polish sausage & corn on the cob. I was hungry so it tasted pretty darn good. After my plate was clean we headed up to the lodge for some ice cream. By the time we got back to camp it was getting dark so I got a good fire going and we hung out close by until about 11:30 when I decided to call it a day and get some good sleep.
Saturday I woke up about 8am and while I made breakfast for me and the boys I vowed that I wouldn’t run myself ragged all weekend. It’d been a month since I’d been up to camp but because of the really dry weather we’ve had the grass hadn’t hardly grown at all and there were only a minimal number of ferns so I got out the weed wacker and cleaned up the whole west side in less than an hour.
Next thing was to fire up the lawnmower and mow the flatlands area around the pines. That was about the only place where the ferns had really grown since my last visit. It took awhile to clean up the whole flatlands area and then I got the bright idea to take some of the stakes I’d been carrying around in the truck since the Spread the Music concert last month and Hammer one in at each pine tree as kind of a height and placement marker. I may have to do something more before it snows but that’ll do for now.
After I was done with the mower I got out the chain saw next to clean up a mess that someone made…somebody cut down the bush / tree that was on the corner since I was last at camp. I know why they did it…..for visibility, but it still ticked me off a bit because not only did whoever do it, do it without asking, but they didn’t have the decency to clean up the mess they made. They just cut the limbs down and left it all in a big pile right on the corner. So, I drug all the limbs out of the pile and cut off the ends and piled up the logs for firewood. By the time I got done with that the chainsaw blade was in need of sharpening and I was pooped so I called it a day about 4:00 and headed up to the lodge for a shower and some ice cream. I putzed around camp after I got back until about 7 and then I made dinner for the 3 of us….some hamburger helper and more corn on the cob. After dinner we hit the lodge again and then took a ride around the grounds for awhile. When we got back to camp it was time to start a fire and kick back. I got the guitar out and picked on that for awhile. Spent some time trying to recall all the chords and words to “These Days”. If I could just sing it without making myself cringe I’d be a happy camper. It was after midnight before I gave it up and went to get horizontal.
Sunday after breakfast (Cinnamon rolls and orange juice) I decided to start in on the Medicine wheel project so I grabbed the shovel, wheel barrow and saw and headed to the site. I spent the bulk of the day working on it and I got the frame pretty much in the ground. Next step is the walkways and then digging up the sod to put the painted rocks in each of the 4 sections. I may or may not get that far this year. I’m also going to work on the centerpiece during the winter. It’ll be a 3 foot in diameter piece of wood that I’ll burn the face of a compass on and then clear coat it a dozen times so it’ll handle the outside and then next spring I’ll attach it to the stump. Don’t ask me why I’m doing it…I just like being creative and designing and building things. Here’s a pic of the one out at the Ben Riefle Visitor Center in the Badlands that gave me the idea to do my own…..it's in pretty bad shape, needs to be weeded and the rocks should be white for North, red for East, black for West and yellow for South.
Anyhow, it was about 5 when I decided to call it a day. It took an hour to put everything away and lock up so we were on our way out of came about 6:15. Got home about 8 and didn’t do much of anything when we got home.
That’s pretty much it for last week. This week I’ve been working or napping, depending on how I feel at the moment. This coming weekend is the Metro Cruise but the weather is looking iffy for the weekend so I haven’t decided if I’m gonna get involved with it this year. I plan on staying around the house for the most part and hitting the last side of the garage….the worst side. Once the outside is done then I can try and get some stuff organized on the inside with the warm weather days we have left at that point.
No pics from camp this week…..I just never got around to pulling the camera out.
posted by Tom Eckels at 11:52 PM
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