Friday, May 27, 2011

Happy Memorial Day!

Sorry that the Camp Chicken Chronicles has been silent of late. It has been a busy spring.

Arlene was doing really well with her new knee until the last week of her therapy and she began to experience a great deal of pain. Turns out she has a stress fracture of the small leg bone in her right leg, the same leg as the new knee. It was very disappointing to her and very frustrating. She is doing better but I don't think it has completely healed.

We were at camp last weekend just in time for the first black fly and mosquito hatch. Wow! I forgot what it was like to be swarmed by biting insects. Whew.

We had been at camp the first weekend in May and it had been great. We set up the croquet game and had some pretty intense matches. Tiny watches with great interest from the cozy comfort of her chair as the game progresses. I noticed that in this photo, you can see that she is getting old. I hate the thoughts of that. She is such a big part of camp now.






We had a very nice time that weekend. It was Mom's 81st birthday on Saturday, May 7th and we went out for brunch on Sunday for her birthday and Dad's. He was 84 on April 25th.

Last weekend, we got to camp about our usual time and tried to cut the grass but the insects swarmed us pretty bad. Mary managed to get the area around the firepit done and I did the long grass where the motor home used to be. The motor home is gone, thank goodness. We don't have to look at that old wreck anymore.

After getting things unloaded we toddled off to Hessel casino for the evening. We didn't have much luck and were tucked in our beds back at camp by 11:30 pm.

Saturday morning was really beautiful and sunny. We got up at 8:00 am and had our donuts and coffee and got to work. Mary and I loaded up all the junk that was piled up around camp. There was an old swing, two BBQ grills, and an old lawn mower. We threw it in the trailer and hauled it up to "Malfunction Junction", the local junk yard.

I just wanted to get rid of it, but as it turned out, the stuff was worth some cash! We headed back to camp to load up the rest of the old lumber from the deck we replaced last summer at home. I wanted to haul it up in the woods and put it on the brush pile on the "Short-cut Road".

Small problem, though, the new Chevy Trailblazer is wider than the old Blazer I used to have, so it barely fit in between some of the trees on the road. Don't think I will be trying that again. We did manage to get the wood unloaded and I had to turn that darn trailer around up in the woods because the rest of the road is blocked by some downed trees.

After a good deal of cussing, I managed to get turned around and get safely back to camp. Our last task of the camp cleanup, was to hook up Dad's old snowmobile trailer to Arlenes big 4-wheeler and haul it over to the other big clearing and out of our way.

We took a break and had some lunch and then headed to Mom and Dad's to load up Dad's riding lawn mower and take it out to Cindy's house so she could mow her back yard. Mary started up her push mower and mowed the front yard for her and we were done in no time.

Back to camp for a relaxing evening. Arlene was grilling T-bone steaks and potatoes for supper. Wow, were those steaks delicious. Cindy came up for dinner and afterward, we made a nice fire and had "Smore's". We were really having a great time, when the wind died down and the bugs got really bad. We had to give up and go inside and play cards for the rest of the evening.

Rain moved in overnight and it was still very wet and cool in the morning. We listened to the weather report over morning coffee and donuts. Severe weather was possible later in the day so we decided to pack it up and come home.

We probably won't spend Memorial Day at camp. Arlene's granddaughter, Sarah is graduating from Sault High on Sunday and her open house is Saturday. Looking forward to socializing with everyone and eating some really great food.

Depending on the weather, we might make a camp run on Monday. We'll see how tired we are from graduation. I have to haul the trailer back to camp anyway.

The city alley plow went by a couple of weeks ago and dug up this big piece of concrete out of our yard and flipped it up onto the lawn. We busted it up into pieces with the sledge hammer and I need to haul it up to camp and get rid of it.

Well, have a great weekend everyone and get outside!!