I got to go camping

Eventually it stopped raining and  dried  up enough to get our RV into the lake spot that is our second choice.  I sleep so well up there.  

Here I am threading line on to tiny hooks.  The fishing was not good at all.  They seemed to be still down deep in the middle of the lake and lethargic even though the ice had been off the lake for a few weeks.  But I just love being out by a campfire and reading and getting some sun again finally after 6 months of fall and winter.  I actually got burned one day so had to get out my straw Minnie Pearl hat.  

 The willow trees along the shore were just starting to bud out and the hummingbirds came back.  The first morning they came to camp I was outside in my  housecoat to put in my lines, when one came right up to my nose and hovered as if to say, "Nope, no nectar in there."  So I put out two feeders but the first visitor was a butterfly.  Can you see it hanging underneath.  It returned to sip even when the hummers were fighting over the best red metal flower.

There is some kind of primal soothing that goes on around an evening campfire.  

A new immigrant, single mother from Dublin, and her daughter, came for one night to visit and experience the lake.  They loved it.  When it was too cold they played snap inside the RV.  It was an adventure for them to just open the sofa and sleep nose-to-toes for the night.  The dinette table also collapses into a 3/4 bed but they used the sofa as it is roomier.

It was cold in the morning, near freezing, and they had to wait for me to get up and put the gas furnace on and have coffee.  They made the coffee actually.  Fishing was poor but the sun was shining.  So the daughter, Trinity, decided to go floating on the lake.

They had to leave for school duties.  Another Old Scotsman who was there in a tent was doing an AA dry out.  He is hilarious and was there last year doing the same kind of retreat.  We had some cold nights and rain so I offered him the joy of coming inside to watch a DVD while the generator charged up the batteries.  He chose some old oaters like Bonanza and an old Mel Gibson.  He fell asleep on the sofa without it being opened so I just threw some more blankets on him and let him snore.  I was glad that I had shown him some Christian charity that cold night as in the morning the generator would not start.  He pulled out the batteries which was a tough job for a 73 year old.  He tried many tricks but decided one of the batteries was dragging the other down.  So we hauled them to town for testing and sure enough Old Man had to pay for a new deep cell battery.  Old Bill also re-installed them.  

I was so glad when I could clean up all the mess and have a furnace again and a generator that would re-charge things.

I was so happy to have the place uncluttered that I bought myself a bouquet of flowers for the wee table the next time we went down to the village.

 I was very thankful for my warm bed during the cold nights.

But oh how I love the peacefulness

of being out in the wilds.  The quiet and the flops of jumping fish and the beaver going by and watching eagles and osprey fish to feed their young is such a delight.