Rainy Weekend At Camp

Well, another rainy weekend here in the great northwoods.

But, Arlene and I went to camp anyway. We managed to get unpacked and take a nice 4-wheeler ride before the rain started.

Arlene grilled some nice pork steaks and made fried potatoes on the grill and while we were eating dinner the rain started. It rained all evening so we just stayed in and played Phase 10 all night and went to bed early.

I woke up about 3:00 AM and the wind or rain was making a strange noise just like a freight train. I jumped up and went to look outside but everything seemed ok. I was sure we were going to get blown away or something. Arlene said she heard it too but figured if it was a tornado there is really nowhere to go to hide from it at camp so she just covered up her head and waited to see where we would land.

We made it through the night and we were both up at 6:30 AM! We wanted to go to Skinners to get our new chain saw but they don't open til 8:00 AM so we drank coffee and played cards until then. We came home with a nice new Husqvarna 16" chain saw.

We had planned on burning the big brush pile in the meadow and since it was still raining, it seemed like a safe time to do it. There was brush and all of the old siding off Mom and Dad's garage that we had re-sided last fall.

We poured gasoline on the brush...I know...bad idea. It didn't want to light so we poured more gas on it and tried again. Arlene lit a rolled up paper towel and reached to toss it on the brush when WHOOSH the gas caught and flames jumped everywhere. Luckily, Arlene didn't get burned but it scared the heck out of me.





The only time the fire got a little scary was when the flames got pretty high and were getting close to some maple branches. But, it was raining hard the whole time so everything was soaked.

We began flipping the siding over more toward the middle of the clearing and gradually the fire began to settle down. We sat in the car in the rain for four hours watching the fire burn. Every 15 minutes or so we would go out and push everything toward the middle.

By 3:00 PM we had a pile of ashes and burning debris about 3 feet across.



We went back to the trailer about 4:00 PM and played cards again until 5:00 when Arlene went out, in the rain, and cooked steaks, baked potatoes and corn-on-the-cob for dinner. Good thing the grill is under a big spruce tree.

Cindy came up for dinner and we played cards all night. I don't know what we would do at camp in the rain if we didn't play cards.

Sunday dawned sunny and cold but we'll take that any day. What a really nice day it was. We had our coffee and got to work. The generator needed maintenance so while Arlene did that I went to spread the ashes from the fire out so that they would cool off.

We just puttered around camp and we were just headed to town for more water to completely drown the ashes when Mom pulled up.

We had a really nice visit with her. It was so nice to just sit outside in the sunshine and relax.

We got this brainstorm to plant some stuff for the deer in the spot where we had burned everything so we planted our little crop. Can't wait to see if anything actually grows there.

We went for a really long 4-wheeler ride and as it was getting late we decided to start packing up to go home. It was hard to leave as it was such a beautiful day but by the time we got home it was after 6:00 PM.

We're really looking forward to the upcoming 3-day weekend. The weatherman actually sounds hopeful that it may be actually nice!