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!

FINALLY....

A weekend at Camp!!!

Sorry that I have been away. It has been a crazy summer. Much has happened and we have been very, very busy. In addition, the weather here in the EUP has been horrible. It has rained every weekend this summer and when it didn't rain on the weekend, it was just too hot to go to camp.

But, last weekend, Arlene, Mary, Tiny and I headed for camp Saturday morning after a very rainy Friday.

At the beginning of summer, we brought up a new addition to our campfire circle. Arlene's daughter Janet gave us their old swing as she received a new one for Mother's Day. So it is a nice addition to the camp circle.



Tiny thinks that the armrest makes a great perch for her to keep track of all the action at camp!



Our first task was to fix our two chains saws that have been acting up lately, so Mary and Arlene began taking them apart. They cleaned up the small one and replaced the chain. We were able to cut down two dead spruce trees but it still doesn't seem to be running right.



Of course, Tiny had to keep a close eye on them from her new "throne". She rarely lets any of her "people" out of her sight and must always account for all of us at all times.



After taking our bigger chain saw apart we found that the saw had "cooked" itself. There must have been a oil leak somewhere inside and it got so hot that it totally fused the drive shaft. So, next weekend, we are going into Pickford to Skinner's and buy a new Husquevarna (not sure of the correct spelling) chainsaw.

My sister Cindy came up Saturday evening as Arlene had cooked New York Strip steaks, baked potatoes and corn on the cob on the grill for all of us. What a feast! After dinner we enjoyed coffee by the campfire until it got too cold and damp to sit out.

We went inside for a rousing game of Phase 10. I guess Cindy must have left about 11:00 PM.

Sunday, we slept in until 8:00 AM. We sat around drinking coffee and visiting and since it was gloomy and looked like rain, we played another game of Phase 10. Cindy came up for the afternoon.

When the sun finally came out I mowed the grass while Arlene and Mary tore apart our old lawn mower that we are trying to fix for a camp mower.

I think the two of them just like tearing stuff apart!

We finished our day by playing Phase 10 at the picnic table outside and then packed up for home.

The forecast for this weekend is for a few showers on Friday, rain on Saturday, and a few showers on Sunday. Sheesh....

But, if it does rain, we may burn the big brush pile in the other meadow.

And of course, there is always Phase 10.......

A Tribute To Our Friends

June has not been a kind month to the inhabitants of Camp Chicken. We have lost several of our loved ones in the month of June.

Our good friend, Kathy Fike, passed away on this day, June 9, 2000.



When we first began coming up to Camp Chicken, Kathy wanted to come along. She had never been an outdoor person, living most of her life in Sault Ste. Marie. She was a Native American and was the second employee hired by the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians after the Tribe gained federal recognition in the mid-70s.

Kathy lacked any kind of outdoor skills and Arlene jokingly called her a "City-Indian" but she was our friend so in the early days of Camp Chicken, she tagged along.

In the first fall at camp, we made Kathy trim trees, haul brush and saw wood. I was sure she was going to cut off her thumb or worse. But, she was a good sport and worked hard to help us reclaim the camp clearing from Mother Nature.

At other times Arlene called Kathy, "Bear Bait". Finally, Kathy was brave enough to ask why.

"Well," Arlene said, "if we stumble onto a bear, I know that I can always out-run you, Kath. So you are our Bear-Bait. He'll get you and we can get away."

I think that Kathy thought Arlene was serious, because if she went for a walk in the woods, she made sure to take my dog with her to protect her.


Just two years ago, on June 12th, we lost another good friend, Joanne Fletcher. Jo had been ill for awhile but certainly not ill enough to pass away. Her death was totally unexpected and shocked us all.

This is one of the few photos that I have of Jo. She hated getting her picture taken and I probably have 50 photos of Jo with her hands in front of her face. This photo was taken at Arlene's grandson Arnie's graduation open house. Little did we know that just 10 days later, she would be gone.



When Arlene was just a young mother, struggling to raise three daughters on her own, Jo babysat her kids. She was just like a second Mom to Arlene's daughters and a second Grandmother to Arlene's grandchildren.

Jo was funny, honest and out-spoken. She was one of those friends that you could call at 2:00 AM for any reason and she would help you out.

We tried many times to convince her to come to Camp Chicken for the weekends but Jo loved her creature comforts and prefered being home.


Joanne and Kathy were great friends and talked to each other on the phone almost everyday. They both loved going to the casino.

Several times a year, we would all go on a "Casino Run". Arlene called Kathy, "Erma Tuttle, the Queen of the Shuttle" because Kathy always wanted to be the driver. If it was a gloomy Saturday or Sunday, Arlene would say, "call Erma and Jo and Mary and see if they want to go on a run" and we would all hit the road.

We would drive from the Soo to Hessel Casino, then to St. Ignace Casino, then on to Brimley's two casinos and finally back home to the Soo Casino. It was always great fun. Of course, if your money ran out early, it could be a long, long day.

We really miss our friends and talk about them often, sharing stories about them and honoring their memories.

Memorial Weekend Recap

Sorry this is a week late.

Memorial Weekend was pretty nice at camp, very cold for this time of year but sunny. We spent the mornings and early afternoon cutting more wood for Mom and Dad.

The mosquitoes and black flies were really bad. Saturday, we had to run to town and get Tiny a flea and tick collar because the ticks are really bad at camp. We have never had ticks right in camp before so that was strange.

The woods were a riot of color as the wild flowers were in full bloom. We had trilliums, forget-me-nots, and all kinds of beautiful flowers.





Although we worked hard, we took time to play too. Friday, Saturday and Sunday we took a break to go to the Hessel casino to gamble a little. We were pretty lucky too and played for the entire weekend on just $20 apiece.

We hung up the "Little Girl on the Swing".



The "Little Girl on the Swing" belonged to Gram and during the summer months, she always hung on a tree limb in Grandma's yard. Gram gave it to us to hang at camp. Each spring, we hang her on a birch limb right by the camp woodpile so that we can see her. It is a symbol that camp is open and Gram is with us. Camp never feels right until the little girl is happily swinging in the camp breeze.

I have to tell you a funny story about our weekend.

When we got to camp Friday night, Arlene was really tired, so I offered to unpack our groceries and put things away. Usually Arlene does this and Mary and I do the "outdoor" chores like getting out the generator and the four-wheelers.

What I didn't know that part of the "inside" routine is to check the mouse traps. Arlene thought that I knew the routine so she didn't check the traps.

Saturday, I thought I could smell a dead mouse in the trailer bathroom. I complained to the girls about it but they both had a bit of a cold so they didn't smell anything.

Sunday the smell was much worse and I thought that maybe a mouse had crawled into the trailer drain and died in there. Again I complained to no avail, as the girls couldn't smell a thing.

Monday, we were packing up and Arlene was doing the "inside" part of packing and Mary and I were doing the "outside" part.

Suddenly, I heard Arlene say, "Did you say you still smelled a dead mouse in the trailer?"

As I turned around, I could see a large dead mouse in a trap, dangling from Arlene's hand. "Where did you get that?", I asked.

"I found it in the bathroom cabinet, under the sink", she answered. "Didn't you check the mouse traps when you unpacked the groceries?"

"No," I answered, "I didn't know that I was supposed to".

Mary and Arlene are now both convulsed in laughter at my expense. "Why didn't you just check under the sink when you smelled a dead mouse?", they asked.

I don't know why I didn't, I just didn't think of it.

But, overall, it was a great weekend, except for the seven bites I got on my right elbow that turned into a severe allergic reaction that sent me to the doctor the next day. Thanks to a shot and massive amounts of Benedryl, those have finally cleared up.

We couldn't go to camp this weekend as Arlene's granddaughter Anna, graduated from high school. And we can't go next weekend, as it is Anna's graduation party. But, maybe the next weekend.

Honor Our Veterans

Arlene's grandson, Clifton, is currently serving his 6th tour in Iraq.

Like thousands and thousands of other brave young men and women, he puts himself in harm's way everyday so that his family and his country can be safe.

So, while you are out this weekend enjoying the outdoors, stop for just a moment and say a prayer of thanks for the men and women who have proudly served our country so that you and I can enjoy the freedoms we have as Americans.

Woodchucks at Camp Chicken

It was "Woodchuck Weekend" at Camp Chicken!

Arlene and I took last Friday off to give ourselves a long weekend at Camp. The weather Friday was really nice with cool temperatures, warm sunshine and a breeze stiff enough to keep those blasted UP blackflies pinned to the ground. Perfect weather to cut wood.

Mary Sue and Tiny even got to camp early so that they could help us cut wood for my Mom and Dad.





We spent most of Friday just east of the camp clearing cutting up dead maple and my Mom's beloved Ironwood. Ironwood, for those who don't know, is a member of the birch family, but is also called the American Hop-hornbeam maybe because it's seed pods look just like Hops. When dry, it burns slowly and leaves a bed of very hot coals making it perfect for woodstoves.

I gave Arlene and Mary the name "Woodchucks" because they never let any piece of wood go to waste. No matter how small the stick is, we can still use it, they insist. So anything too small for Mom and Dad goes on the camp woodpile for campfire wood. Nothing goes to waste with those two "woodchucks".

Arlene cooked us a great dinner of grilled steak and potatoes and biscuits. We ate like lumberjacks.

Saturday found us up very early to go to town to a garage sale that supposedly had an backyard sauna for sale. Arlene wants a sauna for camp.

Finnish saunas are extremely popular in the UP because of the large Finnish population that lives here.

Sauna is really more of a Yooper verb than a noun. It means to sit in a small shack, usually made of cedar, and pour water on rocks heated on the top of a wood stove, and sit in the steam. When you have had all the heat you can take, you run outside and take a cold shower or roll in the snow if it is wintertime. Sounds like fun, huh?

Anyway, the sauna wasn't really what we were looking for. We ran a few errands and headed back to camp. We needed to drain the water and bleach solution we use to sanitize the water tank so that we could fill the trailer tank with water.

We ran into Mom and Dad on the road. They had come up and got the wood that we had cut up the day before. They couldn't visit too long as Dad had to get his hair cut.

Then it was off to the south of camp to another spot that had quite a bit of dead, dry ironwood and maple. We spent the entire day back there, cutting, dragging and hauling wood back to camp to put on the trailer for Mom and Dad.

Some of the dead maple was pretty big for the wood stove so Arlene decided to split it.



I had kept a small fire going in the camp firepit all day so that we could cook hotdogs over the fire for lunch. Why is a hotdog cooked over an open fire the most delicious meal ever??

Then it was back to the woods. Finally, at 4:00 pm, our backs couldn't take anymore and we quit for the day.

The girls began hinting that they really needed a cup of coffee and a hamburger for dinner so I told them that if they wanted to go to Hessel casino for the evening, we had to take a little nap.

Sunday we were supposed to take Mom and Dad out for their birthdays and Mother's Day but Mom was so dizzy she couldn't even walk so we'll have to do it next weekend. Since Arlene is a Mom, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother we took her out for brunch.

Unfortunately, brunch didn't agree with her and she spent most of Sunday in the outhouse. All in all, it wasn't a great day to be a Mom!

Mary and I amused ourselves by cutting up camp wood on the old "cart path" that runs in a circle around the camp clearing. Arlene's grandchildren built it for the little cart they had when they were small. It looked like a little dune buggy. They had more darn fun with that thing, riding around and around camp as fast as they could go.

We decided to knock off by 2:30 and just sit and enjoy the rest of the afternoon sitting by the fire.

We finally packed up about 5:00 and headed home. I hate packing up! It is so much more fun to unpack at camp than packup.

Well, there is always next weekend!

Nice Weekend at Camp

Arlene, Mary, Tiny and I went to Camp early Saturday morning even though the weather forecast was for rainy and cold weather.

Arlene wanted to "house clean" the trailer and Mary and I would work on cleaning up the mess around camp from the winter. We got to camp about 10:30 AM and it was rather cool and cloudy so we made a nice fire and got to work.

Something is killing our beautiful spruce trees! I don't know if it is an insect infestation or a type of tree disease but it starts with the ends of the boughs turning a kind of yellowish-brown and then slowly the needles fall off and the tree limbs die. Does anyone know what this might be or how I can find out what it is???

Anyway, the high winds this winter caused the tops of three of our dead spruce to snap off leaving a big mess by my bow shack. Mary and I removed all of the limbs and cut those up to burn up in the campfire and then I cut up the trees for firewood.

We did other chores too and had quite the busy afternoon. By 4:00 PM Arlene had completely finished cleaning the trailer and we were just taking a break when it began to rain. Mary and I hustled inside to wait it out. We decided on a game of Phase 10 to pass the time. Soon the rain turned to HAIL and it was pelting down pretty hard.

I was going to make sandwiches for dinner but the girls were hinting that they would like something warm to eat, like maybe a hamburger. I soon realized that they meant they wanted to go down to the Hessel casino for dinner and some gambling fun.

Sunday dawned cool but sunny and after a breakfast of coffee and donuts we started cutting firewood for my Mom and Dad's woodstove. They burned quite a bit of the wood we cut for them last fall during the long, cold winter so they need stocked up.

Arlene's brother came up and cut up a bunch of downed dead trees and left them piled up to be picked up later.

Finally, about 3:00 PM we called it a day. Muscles that had remained unused all winter except for snow shoveling were pretty sore and tired so it was time to quit. We just sat and enjoyed the sunshine and the peace of being out in the woods.

Can't wait to go again this weekend!!