Saturday ; Today was partially cloudy, and cooler.
This morning I did my regular morning routines and chores, then worked on waxing the trailer, waiting for Joanne to return from Winnipeg with the Carlson's. They finally arrived about 1:30, and we had a late lunch.
After lunch, we drove over to Star Lake. As I had hoped, we saw a deer on the short drive from West Hawk Lake to Star Lake. It was the first time Madeleine and Amelia saw a deer and it thrills me to be able to witness young children seeing or doing something for the first time. I thought Star Lake would be warmer than West Hawk Lake for the girls to go swimming, and the beach was likely to be less crowded. Well ... it certainly couldn't be colder than West Hawk, which is the deepest lake in Manitoba, and never gets very warm. I expected Star Lake's beach to be deserted, as it is every time I go fishing on the dock there. It wasn't deserted, being a nice Saturday afternoon, but it certainly wasn't crowded. The Carlson's all went playing in the water, and I sat on the beach, watching. After much play in the water, they played in the sand on the beach. It was mostly a sunny afternoon, and the temperature was moderate so it made for a nice beach outing.
When it was time to leave, and I was walking the little nieces back to the car, I saw a downed birch tree on the edge of the forest. Last year at Grand Beach Provincial Park, I had taught Madeleine and Amelia about birch trees, and birch bark. I asked if they wanted to go peel some bark off this old, fallen birch tree, to use in craft projects or whatever. Okay, they thought that was a neat idea. Amelia peeled a small strip of bark off the tree. Madeleine grasped an edge of bark with both hands, and peeled off a larger strip. When little Amelia saw that her big sister had peeled a larger strip, then Amelia thought she would like to have a larger strip as well. Like her big sister, she grasped the bark with both hands, and pulled. She broke a chunk of bark off the dead birch tree, then in her very quiet, little 4 year old voice, muttered "Oh ... bees !", then started backing away quickly. HOLY SHIT ! ! ! She had ripped open a hornet's nest. I started backing away quickly with her, when Madeleine screamed. Oh, damn ! Madeleine didn't see the swarm come up, and was now standing there being stung. DAMN, DAMN, DAMN. I rushed forward a few steps and yanked Madeleine up and away from the swarm, running with her back towards the beach as she screamed that her leg was hurting really bad. I knew she had been stung, I just didn't know where and how many times. As I ran to the lake with her in my arms, I thought if I dunked her in the lake, the cold water would ease the stinging. I ran into the lake, and dropped her, screaming, into the shallow water. Once she calmed down a bit, I carried her out of the lake, and we were able to examine her closely. She had only one sting, on her ankle. Whew... could have been worse !
We drove back to West Hawk, seeing another 2 deer. We stopped at Keystone Cottages to buy some snacks at the convenience store. While Doug was trying to make up his mind about which potato chips to buy, I left with the girls to walk back to the campground. We stopped in the campground office, so the girls could see the stuffed bear on display. His name is Sampson. I did not know that before. It's amazing what you learn hanging around with a 4 year old and a 6 year old. We walked over to the docks, and Crescent Beach. We played for awhile in the playground in the picnic area. It was time for supper. I barbecued the chicken and vegetable packs Joanne had prepared, and the little nieces prepared the special barbecued banana desserts we had made last year at Grand Beach. Slice a banana in the skin lengthwise, stuff chocolate chips and tiny marshmallows in the slit, wrap it in foil, and barbecue or place over the campfire for 10 minutes or so. They were great !
Just before they left to return to Winnipeg, Doug and the girls took a quick hike to the summit of the campground hiking trail, to see the view overlooking West Hawk Lake. After they left, I started a camp fire, and Joanne and I sat around for a couple of hours, chatting. Joanne told me that while I was at Star Lake with the Carlson's, our "supervisor" came by to tell us that she had been instructed to instruct us that I can not use the campground office fax machine phone line for modem access any longer. I'm horrendously pissed off ! There is a petty, political, pissant in the district office administrative staff who has had a brush up her ass for the last month over my use of a phone jack in the campground office for modem access. She seems to consider it a personal affront ! Well, she has succeeded in having my permission revoked. I guess now she can take an Ex-Lax and get on with her life. We watched with some amusement as the Park Patrol rendered first aid to a young woman who had spent the entire day sun tanning, and guzzling beer. It was debatable which was worse ; her sun burn or her inebriation. The Park Patrol finally called an ambulance, and had the beet red drunk hauled to the hospital in Kenora.
Sunday ; Today was partially cloudy and cooler in the morning. The sky cleared, and it became warm and humid in the afternoon.
After showering this morning, and doing some accounting, I was lazing around, chatting with Joanne about her visit with the Carlson's, when there was a knock on the door. I opened the door, and was very pleasantly surprised to see my dear old curling buddy, Darcy Johnson and his daughter Sheryl. They dropped by for just a few minutes to say hello. Darcy had driven out to pick up Sheryl who was out at the Caddy Lake Girl Guide Camp for the weekend, in advance of her summer job there. She needs to be back there Thursday evening. We invited Darcy to join us for a late dinner Thursday evening after he takes Sheryl to Caddy Lake. A few minutes after Darcy and Sheryl left, Debbie from Maintenance knocked on the door. She was bringing some wild catnip for Teddy. It's a huge hit with Teddy. As I type this, Teddy is sitting beside his dish where I put some of the wild catnip, sneezing and snorting like a junkie, too stoned to respond to me when I talk to him. He's just dropped over onto his side in the middle of the floor, stretched out, "milk treading" in the air.
We had lunch, then I napped. I told Joanne about Bobby Sue's death. We talked about the research Joanne had done while in Winnipeg, on RV Co-ops in B.C.. She found three, one of which we had driven by in May. I want to go back to B.C. this fall, and visit all three of them before we head south into the United States for the winter. I have always thought that living on Vancouver Island, or in the B.C. Gulf Islands, was a very attractive retirement option. In an RV Co-op, one purchases a serviced RV lot, with a concrete pad for the rig, with water, electrical, and sewer hookups, on a small, landscaped "yard", with communal / community facilities like a swimming pool, club house, etc., all on a cost shared basis, somewhat like a condominium concept. Escapees has about a dozen RV Co-op Parks in the Southern U.S.. Maybe we will end up buying into a Canadian RV Co-op to have a summer home base, and a Southern U.S. RV Co-op to have as a winter home base, living for three or four months in each, and spending a few months every spring and fall travelling back and forth between them.
We took Bo on an obedience training walk, as we walked the entire campground to see how many campers were remaining tonight. It was hot and humid, so I took Bo into the lake at Miller's Beach to show his swimming skills to Joanne. He swam back to shore, then refused to allow himself to be caught, to be reattached to his leash. We spent 15 minutes chasing him around, getting more and more angry and frustrated. Bad, bad dog ! I had been in a foul mood all day, and this stunt of Bo's didn't make it any better ! We finally got so disgusted with him, we just started walking back to the trailer. He romped all around near us, refusing to obey any and all commands, until we were almost back at the trailer, when he finally decided to "sit and stay".
We sat at the picnic table, reading the newspaper for awhile. I waxed a small section of the trailer. We barbecued supper, then watched a movie on CBC. When the movie ended at 10:00 P.M., I walked to the bathroom building. Grazing about 20 feet from the men's room door was one of the camp ground's resident deer, a yearling buck. He recognizes me, and so he just continued grazing as I walked slowly past him, talking softly to him. I have watched his antlers grow from bumps on his head about three weeks ago. His antler rack now has six points. In three weeks he's become a six point buck !
DSK
