Spring Opener

We took a drive out to Camp Freedom this weekend to see if it was still winter there or not. Definitely not! There is still some ice in the pond, but there was open water around the edges. I saw a bald eagle fishing in the shallows! There are many geese that live on the pond and something else that makes a very loud and strange call. We never knew what it was until now - cranes! They are so beautiful but LOUD! Sleeping in is not going to be an issue up there. The entire place is covered with some kind of wild onion and there is a very strong onion-y scent in the air. The snow is all melted and little onion plants are starting to poke out of the ground. Our goal for the day was to get the tent set up on the platform and put the outhouse together. We hauled the walls, floor, roof and seat up in the little trailer. We underestimated how much time both those jobs would take. We did get the tent standing, although it still needs some tweaking. We left it up there all winter in its storage chest. We wrapped the whole thing in tarps, but I worried all winter that we would unwrap it and find a moldy mess. Not the case - it was in fine shape. It looks quite at home there - much better than in my backyard. It took several hours, but now it can stay up for the rest of the season. We have shelter! But the outhouse is another story. We got all the pieces there which is a huge deal. Not having that in my garage anymore is great. Here is Thor putting the finishing touches on it the night before we moved it. We had the excavator dig the pit for us last fall, but we sort of forgot that we needed to reinforce the hole. We needed to build a simple frame to fit down into the pit to keep the walls from caving in over time. Luckily, there is a great hardware store 5 minutes away. (One of the selling features of the site - that and the emergency room!) We were able to buy the wood we needed and the guys there even cut it all to size for us. We put the frame together and got it in the hole, but we were out of daylight by the time that was done. We stacked up the outhouse and left it up there. Putting it together should be a relatively simple job now that this foundation work is done. All in all, not a bad day's work.

Target Practice

Ray went door to door this weekend collecting plastic bags from all the neighbors for the archery target. It could still use a bit more stuffing and a bulls-eye, but Guthrie demonstrated it for me this evening.

In Memorium

We said goodbye to our old van yesterday. It was really on her last legs (lots of shuddering) and we gave the keys to a used car dealer who claimed his "compadres" would send it down to Mexico to live out the rest of its years. Nice to think of it heading South. The old Mazda was a very reliable car for us for many years. Best van story - when we were putting the porch on the front of our house, we had to dig 4 foot footings for the foundation. We dug down a few feet and hit a huge boulder. We couldn't think of any way to get it out short of dynamite. We tried to break it with chisels and sledge hammers, pry it out with levers, nothing worked. We finally attached a tow rope on it, backed the van up into the yard, turned on the four wheel drive and towed the beast out of the ground. It now rests in the corner of our front yard. It was quite a triumph and I'm a little amazed no one got killed.

We bought a beautiful 2006 Honda Pilot. It's a large, irresponsible SUV and I love it. Those of you who knew me in the Austin days might remember my affinity for big black trucks. It's very roomy so we're excited to be able to transport lots of friends up to Camp!

Spring is in the Air

It hit 64 degrees in Minneapolis yesterday. The sun was shining and it felt glorious. After a week of rain, almost all the snow is gone. Spring in Minnesota is one of the reasons I live here. It feels like a miracle every year. It looks like we'll be able to get the season started sooner that I had hoped. We are going to head up to camp for a day sometime soon to set up the tent and get a feel for how soon we could actually be camping. I'm sure the snow will be on the ground up there a bit longer than here and even after it melts, the ground will be a muddy mess for a while. We've been working on a few projects around here in anticipation of the season. The outhouse is complete and ready to be transported. Ray and the boys are building an archery target. Ray found some instructions for making a target out of a plastic tarp. He doubled the tarp and stitched up the sides. Next, the whole thing gets stuffed with recycled plastic bags and then a bulls-eye is painted on the front. The whole thing is pretty big. We stuffed all the plastic we had laying around in there and now we only need about 4 million more bags. That's where my local readers come in! Do you have a bag of bags under your sink? Next time you're over, drop them off! Once the thing is more finished, I'll include a photo. It should be pretty fun. Ray and I decided to invest some time and energy setting up some fun things for the kids to do rather than spend all our energy on the building plan. If all we do is work up there, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the place. The kids need to love it and they won't if mom and dad are just working all the time. Once the kids have learned how to entertain themselves there, we will have more freedom to work on our projects. Another thing we're looking into - zipline!!!