I feel like I am drowning in peaches. My one little tree produces massive quantities. I really thought I had lost my harvest when they were still tiny yellow hard knots on the tree in July. I have usually harvested and distributed them the week of the 4th. So, imaging my surprise when they started to grow and change color just last week.
So many peaches hung on the branches, they were touching the ground. I put all manner of braces under the tree to hold the branches high enough to mow and keep them from breaking. I lost three good size limbs that broke from the weight of the fruit. When they begin to ripen, it happens fast and I employed every available receptacle to hold peaches. Soda crates, milk crates, cardboard boxes and bowls and buckets. HeWho loves to run endless errands took a pile and distributed them to various places like the bank and the tow office and just people he met along the way.
I made people take them when they checked in or came to swim and still I peeled and cut up enough to freeze for pies and cobblers. Made the mistake of giving a cobbler to Kevin (aka my wife) and now he thinks I should make another.
In case you are wondering why Kevin would be known as my wife …….. Being a wife is hard work, as those of you who are wives know. Wives get to pick up the debris left in the wake of husbands and children. I have always wanted a wife. Someone to do my bidding without being asked threatened. I like to weed gardens, everyone here knows that. I am not a neat weeder like Andrea with her gloves, digging tools and bucket. I am a spontaneous weeder. If I see a weed I itch to pull it up, sometimes I will pause as I mow to grab a weed or two and toss them in the path of the mower. But, mostly I make little piles of weeds everywhere. I get interrupted frequently and will forget they are there. I do pick them up when I remember …… mostly, sort of.
When Kevin came to live here he wanted to work in return for his rent. A lot of campers do that, but only a few will make me happy with the results of their efforts. I have yet to find anyone under the age of 50 who really knows how to work. When I noticed that Kevin had been consistently picking up my weed piles, I knew he was a keeper! Doesn't bother HeWho complains about my weeding ways at all. He is quite happy for me to have a wife, since I still pick up after him.
But, I still have peaches falling from the tree. I love grabbing a peach and eating it as I go about my business in the morning. Bad thing about this late harvest is that the apples are coming in right on top of the peaches. Beware, if you come here, you will leave with peaches, apples or tomatoes!
I seem to be having technical difficulties. Sometimes I can log on just fine, then, when I really want to log on ….. I can't. It is definitely on my end. Not my laptop, but my provider. Sprint needs to visit the tower again.
You would think that the injured finger would be slowing down HeWho manages to get into trouble. Despite my warnings about mowing and jostling the broken finger, he still mowed the entire park yesterday. The new billboard was awaiting installation and thanks to Kevin and Craig climbing the ladders and putting it up. HeWho was so salivating to get up there and help, but was ordered to stay down.
I would post a picture, but it might take 30 minutes to download and I am a busy woman! Labor Day is just around the corner and there is much to be done. I mowed all day yesterday. Gathered peaches and trimmed the tree back Monday, then devoted all my time and energy to the garden next to the exit drive on Tuesday.
The exit drive garden is a bone of contention. We have a huge area to make wide turns, but people will turn sharp and make the driveway with their vehicle …….. but pull their camper over the boulders (put there to protect the garden) and through the garden. I thought about putting a sign up, imploring drivers to swing out and make a wide turn. Given the fact that most of my signs are ignored, instead I dug up and moved the boulders and added nearly 6 feet to the driveway. I imagine there will still be tire tracks in my garden, but maybe not so many.
I dug up all my bulbs that had been scraped away and buried under a boulder when someone managed to drag it along with them. I used a hand truck to move the really heavy ones and some I just rolled end over end until I got them in place. All the weeds have been removed and the bulbs reset, but my little garden cries out for color. Mums might be coming in the very near future.
After moving all the rocks and digging my shoulders and neck are still hurting! But it does look good out there.
Things seem to have slowed down enough to catch a breath. The cool weather and school have been keeping swimmers away and I have more time to get things done …… except for the phone. When you turn 65, all manner of health care providers begin stalking you. Along with those people longing to help me with my student loans. I have tried blocking the calls, but they just use a different number. Waiting for the prompt to tell you which number to push to be eliminated from the call list doesn't help either.
Don't they realize I get enough calls without them! A man called this morning to "check on" his reservation for Labor Day. The reservation was made last night and it was still right there where I penciled it in!
I have been uninspired of late. Not to worry, plenty of blog fodder still comes my way. My last commenter seemed to think I was waxing political and has decided to never read my blog again. Those of you who know me, no doubt knew that I was merely pointing out that someone who happened to disagree with my opinion decided to go on Facebook and say things about my park that were untrue. She was the one who kept pushing me to give my opinion. I had no intention of talking to a customer about politics.
This is not an apology for my beliefs. I always own what I say and if an apology was called for, it would be forthcoming. Life just keeps going and we are busier than ever. This morning I actually slept until 10:00! I deserved it after the weekend I had.
I got up at 5:30 am, which seems to be the designated time for my little dogs to pee. It rained last night and I loathed the idea of getting my toes wet, since I had every intention of crawling back under the covers. Since my daughter's dog died earlier this summer from eating a rabbit she caught, I have been super diligent about walking through my back yard to make sure Martha, the boy cat has not left any "gifts".
Martha just stares at me like he is trying to hypnotize me when I try to scold him for the carcasses he leaves in his wake. I have been tossing rabbits, birds and mice over the fence all summer. I always hope they will be found by someone else, but I am the one to dispose of them later in the day. This morning I paid for my negligence. As I stood at the door waiting for the little stinkers to come back in, I noticed that Cujo was reluctant to come to me and would not turn around to look at me. He is usually very obedient, but he knows how I feel about eating carcasses.
Charming Eddie scooted through the door, ready to go back to bed, so, leaving the door behind me open I tip-toed over to Cujo and saw the tail and two tiny mouse feet hanging from his mouth. "SPIT IT OUT!" He knew he was in trouble and chose to run from me and into the house and to the side of my bed. While I was very happy that he could not jump up into my bed with his short legs, I was still not happy that he was going to eat a mouse. I picked him up, intending to take him back outside and shake the rat from his mouth.
He SWALLOWED IT WHOLE, me gagging all the while. I shamed him and then denied him access to the bed. The rest of us went back to sleep.
Why did I need the extra sleep? Well, like I told the man admitting HeWho does things to scare me to the emergency room when he inquired why we were there ….. my husband is an idiot. Why? Because he gets these genius ideas and when he tries to implement them, he usually sustains an injury. It is like being married to a geriatric McGyver.
This particular incident involved a 12 volt fan salvaged from a radiator out of a wrecked car. He installed solar panels on the roof of the bath house this spring. The batteries for said panels are housed in the "hallway" between the men's and women's sides of the building. This also allows access to the plumbing and holds the water heater. Along with all manner of stuff that may one day be useful. Like his beloved barn, aka Fred Sanford's Emporium, I do not enter this area. It is poorly lit, damp and creepy.
He had an idea to use this fan to keep the batteries from over heating. Keeping in mind that I have never seen the apparatus he constructed, I am pretty sure I can tell you what happened. I picture this to have lots of different colored wires and a roll or two of electrical tape, maybe some gorilla tape, as well. He is a big fan of gorilla tape. The fan itself has no safety cage covering the blades.
I am sure he had his drill close by and no safety goggles. He does not believe in safety goggles. He doesn't always turn the power off when installing things, either and is frequently shocked. No big surprise, right? He wired up his fan and found the blades to be turning in the wrong direction. Now, he had partially screwed this fan in place. Why would you secure it before you know if it works? For safety purposes? He pulled the wires apart and rewired it and it began turning in the desired direction with great force. So much force that it pulled those screws right out of the wood and was headed to his head. He said his head, but I picture his upturned face, since I am pretty sure he was looking at it. As it fell he raised his left hand to deflect it and it pretty much mangled his left pinkie finger.
I was in the office where I am held captive on weekends. I was pondering when to start popping corn for family movie night and doing a mental head count to know how much to pop. He was on the other side of the park, right across the road from one of our work campers. We ALL have cell phones, but instead of calling or texting me or Kevin, he got into his truck and drove up to the office. You will recall that he never simply walks anywhere.
I saw him pull up close to the door, right where I asked him NOT to park because the sun hits the chrome and bounces back into my eyes. He came through the door with his hand clutched to his chest. His face was ashen, he was sweating profusely and hyperventilating. I did not notice the bloody rag on his hand, I thought he was having a heart attack, taking a few years off my life. He said "I think it took my finger off." That's when I saw the bloody rag and peeled it away. His finger was still attached, but not a lot of tissue was left. I could see bone.
I called for help so I could drive him to a hospital. Kevin was the first to respond and I handed him the store keys and told him where to put the pending reservations and just wing it if any non-reservations showed up. By this time, the immediate pain had subsided and HeWho scares me was looking much better. As I was pulling out, a friend was pulling in. Terry and Sharon took him to the nearest ER for me and I checked in my campers and Kevin took over the movie screen set-up.
This turned out to be a bad idea. The closest ER is 20 miles away and not at all equipped to handle a big emergency. This was not a big emergency, I knew they would X-ray and clean up his wounds, maybe try to suture it closed, bandage it and give him enough pain meds for the weekend and refer him to a hand surgeon. But it would seem that competent ER doctors are rare in these parts. The "doctor" on duty was afraid to do any suturing, despite the fact that he called University Hospital in Columbia and was instructed to do just what I thought would be done. Instead, he just had the nurse apply a pressure bandage and give him the x-rays and tell him he needed to see a hand surgeon immediately. Oh, he also gave him a Percocet for pain.
So, off we went to another city to a hospital that I only had a vague idea of it's location …… in the dark. I have night blindness, but I got us there. He wanted to drive, of course and would have driven a lot faster than I did. We crawled into bed around 2 am after a nurse practitioner did what the doctor should have done and we see the hand surgeon later this week.
Now he sits in his recliner, hand in the air in a Percocet haze waiting for me to fix his bandage. Looks like he is trying to give me the finger and doesn't know which one to use!
Having recently been stabbed in the self esteem, I have spent the last month licking my wounds and re-evaluating my life. I am better now thanks to a caring message from a reader and a new drug regime.
The lead is back in my pencil and now I don't know where to start. Seems like so many things have happened lately that make me sad. A very dear friend died suddenly. He will be sorely missed by so many. Another dear friend just lost her dad, only months after her mom passed. Like me, she is now an orphan. I just learned that someone very close to me has been diagnosed with cancer.
A camper recently posted a very bad review of my campground. It really had little to do with my facility and a lot to do with my mouth. In my own defense, she did solicit my opinion about our current president. I should have just stopped with "I am not a fan." But she seemed to want to argue his virtues and I argued right back. What seems to be ironic is that the people who defend him overlook the fact that he broadcasts his opinions in the most vulgar of terms. Whatever. She said that my park looks like section 8 housing. It doesn't and I know it, along with a whole lot of other people who choose to camp here. Whatever.
The days have been hot and humid, making me happy to see that rain had fallen through the night and my rain barrels filled with water that can now be routed through soaker hoses in the gardens. I mowed yesterday evening until I could no longer see, hoping to get a head start on today's chores. This morning it was cloudy and cool. I managed to finish my mowing and get back to cleaning out garden beds until the skies opened and rain fell.
I love the smell of rain hitting the earth. I gathered up all my ripe tomatoes and made tomato sauce. I even ventured out in the rain to harvest some fresh basil and rosemary. It is simmering as I write and smells heavenly …… well, if you like the aroma of tomatoes and garlic and spices. The sun is back with a vengeance.
I was hoping for a quiet afternoon with no swimmers. I have no swimmers, but an early arrival to camp. A big rig, at least 40 feet. The wife finally came in to register after sitting in the camper for a good 10 minutes. I saw no tow vehicle and they had pulled really close to the building. The rain stopped long before they came and I just figured they did not want to walk far.
I presented her with a registration form and she looked at it like it was an alien creature, informing me that she had pre-registered. I explained that she had RESERVED a site and that we were registering now. She started to the door saying she would tell him to go on and park, asking if they were still going to site 3. I suggested that she take a map to him and that I would hi-lite the route to site 6. Site 3 would be a 30 amp back-in. They had requested a pull-thru and needed 50 amp.
Then she said, "Oh, he can wait, he needs to follow me anyway, he can't see too well." Just what every park host wants to hear ….. that the driver can't see and is behind the wheel of a giant motorhome. She was driving her car.
I have always wondered about people traveling in separate vehicles on long trips. Wouldn't that take the fun out of traveling together? Her car was small and would have been an easy tow for the big diesel pusher. But, there is that problem with not seeing well …...
People aside, the week alone was immensely stressful. When the pool opens for the season, the operation of the park becomes extremely labor intensive. We have a robot that crawls through the pool at night and sucks up any little particles of dirt or grass. But someone has to put it in the pool and take it out and police the area for all the trash that gets tossed to the ground. Bathrooms have to be cleaned and stocked daily. And someone has to go purchase the stuff that stocks all this, as well as the camp store. It really requires two people.
The grounds maintenance is the most time consuming part of running this campground. We kind of have a schedule going for that and we have camp workers to help. But the store hours lengthen this time of year and I have to be in the store from 11 am until 8 pm every day. That extends to 9 am until 9 am on weekends and holidays. Not busy the entire time I am in the store, I am able to throw some laundry on and cook our meals and even go to the bathroom from time to time.
I may have stayed here while HeWho tended to family matters, but I worried the entire time and spent lots of time on the phone. It was especially hard for me, since I will confess that I do like to be in charge. So, one would hope that I might catch a break after dealing with people problems ….
I woke early Thursday morning to shuffle out with the dogs to preform their morning ritual. The bird that has been greeting me every day was in his favorite position on the support holding the antennae for the wi-fi signal. I nodded in his/her direction and we acknowledged one another. The warbling and chirping began and I talked softly to him/her while the canines took care of business. It was 5 am. I felt like I had just gone to sleep, but all the mowing had been accomplished the day before and rumors of rain had been on the weather channel.
Silly me. I went back to bed for a little more snooze time. Wall-E, the curious one, jumped down out of the bed. I could hear his toenails clicking on the floor as he ventured out of the bedroom. Wall-E is a secret eater. He likes to rise early and eat all the dogfood left in the bowl from the previous day. I suppose you could say that, like me, he prefers the quiet of the morning to be all his while he wakes completely. But, he began barking.
I figured he was looking at the monitor and must have seen some activity outside, I ignored him. He barked again and I yelled at him to "shut it or I will get my flyswatter!" He persisted and I was none too happy when I crawled out of bed to march in and reprimand him.
Wall-E is a good little dog. He was alerting me to a problem. I stepped over the threshold into my little den and was in three inches of water. The dogs food and water dishes were floating around. The water main burst and the pressure was so strong, there were waves. I was still in that half sleep state when I called HeWho plumbs to ask what I should do. Normally I would have rousted him from bed and started cleaning up immediately while he dealt with turning the water off, but he was not here.
I was directed to the breaker box in the electrical/water/laundry room to turn off the pump to the well that supplies water to the entire park. I had to pass a breaker box that someone HeWho tinkers with all things electric had left the door off, exposing the electricity to the water. I was quite annoyed about this and informed him that I would never forgive him if I was killed from my efforts.
Then I called upon my new favorite camper in the world, Craig. He brought the other new favorite camper in the world, Kevin and they fixed my pipe and restored water to the park. It took awhile and I fielded complaints while they worked and I swept water out the doors. I found that method to be faster than the shop vacuum. After I swept for what seemed like an endless amount of time, I mopped. I dragged all the rugs out to dry in the sun. Wet rugs are heavy, just so you know.
Water was restored by 2 pm and swimmers arrived despite the dismal forecast. We had a mere drizzle of rain come down. When I locked up at 8 pm, I mowed the last little patch of grass on the side of the building and pulled a few weeds. As darkness fell, I realized that I had not eaten anything of substance all day. I did eat a protein bar when I swallowed my pills in the early morning hours. But, nothing sounded good, so I ate a peanut butter sandwich, showered and crawled into my bed.
Friday dawned with the promise of a sunny day. I was outside doing some chores and watering my plants when my phone rang. It was our cousin and I unlocked the door to the store to head in and have a cold drink while we talked. I opened the door to see water rushing my way. The water main again. No instructions needed, I knew what to do. I felt like crying when I called Craig again. No need to bother HeWho was dealing with other things.
I did not cry, as that would just be more water to sweep. We had water again by noon. Practice had shaved two hours off the time. I do not want to know what a third breach in the pipe would be like! I had not put the rugs and mats back down, so when I finally had dry floors again, I was able to put the store back together, the living quarters had to wait. My laundry baskets holding dirty laundry got soaked and I could not seem to get my washer going, forgetting that the GFC was in the ladies room and it had been tripped. I hung the wet stuff on the line to avoid mildew. Friday was a very long day, there were a few moments when I thought I was not going to make it, but I did and locked up by 10 pm after checking in some late arrivals.
After another night filled with intermittent dreams and insomnia, I ventured out carefully, half expecting water up to my ankles, but the day started out pretty good with a text at 9 am telling me that HeWho is my forever hero was on his way home!!
If you read the previous post, you will recall that I was on my own …… well, not really. I have some wonderful campers here. They have rescued me more than a few times while HeWho usually does my bidding is gone.
The kid in the pool creating havoc and hitting other swimmers with his beach ball, subsequently telling me to "F" off, I handled on my own. To my credit I did not grab him by the earlobe and drag him to his parent, but I wanted to. He was about 8 or 9 and unsupervised in the pool. I have plenty of signage forbidding this, but that is assuming you can read. Yeah, I know, that wasn't nice.
The man came in late Sunday night looking for a tent site. Primitive, no electricity He claimed to have his wife and 2 children with him. That's all. So, he paid cash and went off to the site I assigned him.
Monday morning was a mass exodus from the campgrounds. My favorite campers were busy cleaning up their site when I returned the dishes that delivered meals to me. They come every year and I have come to refer to the sites they inhabit by their name. I had not had much sleep the night before, but swimmers could not be disappointed and I drank too much coffee and carried on with my day. Kevin and Craig, my heroes, went around the park picking up all the trash and generally helping me maintain a sense of sanity.
At about 12:30, the primitive camping man entered the store with a toddler in a bathing suit. I gently reminded him that check-out time was noon and that swim diapers were required on toddlers. He got more money and paid for another day and assured me that his child was in a swim diaper. He wasn't, I could see his little butt cheeks clearly outlined in his thin shorts. He asked if he could fish. I said yes and reminded him that it was catch and release. At his blank look I pantomimed the action of hooking a fish, then un-hooking a fish and tossing it back into the water. He clearly understood the concept as he nodded vigorously in the affirmative.
As the day wore on, most of the weekenders left and the swimmers disappeared. I closed the store and grabbed the mower to get a head start on the grounds that would have to be dealt with. I was mowing under the apple tree that is close to the exit drive, listening to an audio book when a van entered the wrong drive and flew past. Sighing deeply, I turned off the mower and headed over to tell her about speeding and ignoring signs ……
So, there she was with the primitive tent man. I leaned into her vehicle and started talking before I realized that she could not understand a word I said. I thought that she was his wife and that they had two vehicles. He told me that she could not speak or read English …… which begs the question of why she was driving at all. He translated and I looked around to see extension cords going to sites with outlets. Deep breath. I let it go, trying to be generous and create some good karma for myself.
As I headed back to my mower, my camper who has a site overlooking the pond waved me down. Primitive tent fisherman had violated my catch and release policy. Not only that, but when another camper reminded him that he could not keep the fish, primitive tent camper fisherman DUMPED THE FISH ON THE GROUND AND LET THEM DIE. Thirty five of them, some not even big enough to clean and eat.
He was also seen tossing beer bottles in my pond. Trash was all around the site he was on, but you always assume they will pick it all up before they leave. You know that saying about assuming.
My campers that overlook the pond have taken it upon themselves to not only keep their site looking great, but they also have the shores around the pond in pristine condition. To say that they were upset is an understatement. Long story short, I told the primitive fisherman with more people than he paid for that he had to leave. It was already after 8:00 pm and I could count all the people as they left the pool and headed back to the site.
He demanded a refund! None was forthcoming, and I told him he owed me money. He asked why I cared about the fish, what difference did it make to me. My tolerance for ignorance was at an all time low and I shared many of my opinions with him as I urged to get off my property before law enforcement arrived.
Karma, where were you? There is more to tell about my week on my own. Stay tuned!
It has been an adventure, these past days. Memorial Day found no empty sites here. You can always count on at least one problem group on any given holiday. People seem to forget that they are not the only people celebrating an event. This year found me with several hot spots to deal with. Nothing too bad, mostly noise and speeding and pool issues.
The weekend began on Wednesday with the first arrivals. Other than having to assure men drivers that I knew what I was doing and "No, do not pull in backwards, your hook-ups will not be on the correct side" and reminding people that the signage and speed limit must be obeyed; my part went smoothly.
The pool filled with swimmers in that cold, cold water and I was up to my elbows in snow cones. HeWho was out and about trying to maintain stuff. He came in long enough to tell me that, although the pool was full of water, the pump motors on both pumps had died. He grabbed some money from the register and headed out for parts. He came and went all day and tinkered with whatever men tinker with when they are fixing motors.
He got one working and ordered a new pump. He tinkered and fixed all day Saturday as I shuffled late arrivals for the weekend and overnighters who were traveling without reservations. I was closing up when one of my favorite campers, a sweet girl I have watched grow into a lovely young lady came up with her hands full of food for us. Always a silver lining in a cloud, you know.
We ate and fell into bed exhausted. Sunday dawned way too early and I began the day in the bathrooms, stocking and cleaning. Pool pumps still not working properly and day swimmers coming in like ants out of a disturbed ant hill. HeWho was beyond frustration dealing with the mechanics of our life and me so busy a bathroom break was a luxury, when we had a family emergency and one of us had to go.
It is a given that HeWho does not do well behind the desk. He absolutely hates it and would rather route sewer. There are lulls when it seems there is nothing to do and then there are times when two people would be great. Then there is the phone to handle. I have the business line forwarded to my cell, which pretty much guarantees that you will hear my voice if you call …. and some days it rings non-stop. Which one of us to go would need to give our full attention to the situation and for that reason, I stayed here and he left.
He left right after he got one pump going and drove through the night. I do not drive in the dark so this was another reason he was the perfect candidate to go. When you own your own business, it is true that you are the boss. It is also true that there is no one who can jump in and take over at a moments notice. Holiday weekends are the basis of our income and can either make or break our annual profits. It was just as hard to stay here as it was to leave HeWho to handle things. Maybe harder. One of my children needed us.
I have been on my own for nearly a week now. Thank God for my campers who jumped in to save me when I needed help. Now that the week is behind me, I can calmly relay all the calamities that befell me in the absence of HeWho fixes stuff.
So, what does that have to do with the picture? For awhile now, I have been doing little acts of kindness and saying that I am creating my own karma. I know that some may take offense to the term "karma", but call it what you will; whatever you put out there will come back to you in one form or another if you live long enough. While most of the time I simply ignore what people do, like lying about how many people they have with them, or stealing all the paper supplies out of the bathrooms. They are creating their own karma, as well. Sometimes, though …….
Yesterday morning I got a call requesting a site for the night. The woman was very abrupt on the phone as she relayed questions from her husband to me. They arrived just after noon and I found them both to be unfriendly downright rude. I registered them and gave them a map to their site and went on about my day. My day started off with a major problem, the water main burst. I had water back on and had swept all the water out of the store and my living quarters, but I am sure I looked pretty bedraggled, not having had the opportunity to shower and put on clean clothes. I wanted to look down my nose at her the way she was looking at me and say, "Don't judge me, lady!"
At 6:30, they drove their camper up to the office, going the wrong way on the one-way road and the woman came barging in to inform me that she wanted a refund because our camp ground was "disgusting" and they could not stay here. Not only could she not read road signs, it seems that it took her 6 hours to become disgusted. I gave her the refund, creating my own karma. In retrospect I wish I had responded in kind and charged her for the 6 hours she spent taking a nap so that they could continue their trip. I wonder just how many campgrounds have refunded them.
