When Martha (the boy cat) isn't hunting or sleeping the day away in my bed, he is out in my gardens. Like me, Martha enjoys being outside in nice weather. When it is raining he is happy to stay inside, but as soon as the weather is warm, he likes to spend lots of time outside.
Martha will sometimes follow me around as I go about weeding and picking fruit and vegetables. He seems to always be watching what I am doing. So, why is he laying where I planted some four o'clocks? He saw me digging and preparing the soil to grow the seeds. He KNOWS I do not like this!
Despite my scolding he just lay there looking up at me. He looks pretty sure of himself. Smug!
Since Martha does his job at keeping the rabbits out of my garden, he pretty much has the run of the place. But now I find him in my pepper patch. Really? Does he think this will be allowed?
Just look at him lolling among my pepper plants! Ignoring me as I warn him to GET OUT! I don't have any more pictures. He made himself scarce after I turned the nozzle to "jet" and propelled him out of my garden.
I confess that I might be a little worried about pay back. No telling what he will put in the back yard for the dogs tomorrow!
I now have a new I-phone with a hotspot for internet. Good for me, but we are still fighting with our friends at Sprint to get the Wi-Fi back up and running ..... since it is one of the amenities of our park.
I have a confession to make. I do like to use that word -amenity- with those campers less educated, just to watch their looks of confusion. Is that mean? Of course it is. Lack of internet access has made me mean.
I got up early this morning with the canine contingent and saw, to my utmost delight, that the satellite for the internet was working! As much as I wanted to crawl back in bed, I stayed up to take care of business.
I had over 400 e-mails on my personal account and almost that many on the Kampground account. I lost some reservations due to the fickle internet and I plan to tell Sprint just how I feel about this ....
HeWho has spent days on the phone with them. They have given every excuse available for the outage, but no long term solution. We were told that a part for the satellite was on order and would be installed this past Tuesday. This would involve climbing the tower for a technician to install it. Should they have been informed that I can see the tower and actually hear the voices of the men when they are working in the air? I watched and saw no activity all day long. I was outside mowing all day long!
It comes and goes and when I do see that it is working, I go on-line and take advantage of it. It is annoying and frustrating, though. I had an appointment yesterday for a check-up. When I came home, I saw that HeWho handles all things Sprint was on the phone with them. I went to Walmart to get my prescriptions and to restock the store. He was either back with them on a second call ...... or maybe he was still on the first call?
All I can say is that we will be sporting new phones in 2 business days. These phones will have their very own hot spots and I will be able to access the internet any time I want. HeWho loves new gadgets is quite pleased with himself and his negotiating powers. Me? I hate new devices. Seems like I just learned how to use this phone and now I will have to acquaint myself with a new one. I am old and do not want to adapt to change.
I now have to go outside and get all my chores done before the day swimmers invade the pool and I am stuck in the office. Keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to get on-line again and while away the hours reading blogs and commenting!
I am finally back on-line. Many more calls to Sprint resulted in many more reasons we had no internet. HeWho is in charge of that particular vendor and he made all the calls. He was offered a free month's service to compensate for all the days we had no internet.
Sounds fair to me, but my interpretation of this offer might be a little different than theirs. I want to be credited for the service I paid for and did not have, then a free month of actual service. Probably not going to happen. Instead of the credit to our account, they raised the rates ....
We had a great weekend here. The weather cooperated with just one rain storm on Saturday. During the storm, some tent campers hung out in the store and played with my dogs. I let all four of them out and Eddie was the Charmer, of course. Wall-E went from one person to another and watched the door, lest one of his pack escape. Toni Louise is not shy and after making sure no food was going to be falling, lay on her back on the floor next to HeWho is her master. Cujo, as always, stayed close to me.
We had live entertainment on Sunday. A local guy, Dan Smith, put on a great show and my campers requested his return for the fourth of July. Primarily a country singer, he also offered up all genre of music. A videographer was taping and it will be available soon with a link to our website and Facebook page. I am hoping they got some footage of HeWho is a good sport dancing with the man whose wife refused to dance with him!
Most of my holiday kampers are regulars and come every year. I have had the pleasure of watching the kids grow from toddlers to teenagers. It is always good to see old friends after the long winter. There are also return visitors that baffle me. One in particular complains every time he comes.
I don't care what I do, where I park him, he ALWAYS complains. Loudly, and most usually in front of a crowd of people checking in. He always has a crowd of people "visiting" him. They take advantage of all the amenities of the park and he will only pay for them after he is caught. Last season after a particularly loud (on his part) confrontation, I asked the man why he chose to stay here, that if he did not agree with all of the rules, he could certainly go somewhere else. He never gave me an answer. This stay was no different and I was told after the fact that he had had many visitors. I will not be accepting any more reservations from him. I don't need the headache.
I hear the grass calling out to be mowed ........
This week has been particularly stressful. In addition to trying to get the pool ready and having the weather not cooperate, the unnecessary drama in the park is making my waking hours downright hellish.
There is a reason that I don't open the office until 11 am. I am not languishing in bed or parked in front of the TV .... not that it matters, it is, after all, my business what I do when I am not in the office. But, I am usually outside taking care of outside chores that must be done. Like mowing, emptying trash barrels, cleaning up ...... whatever happens to need attention. My store hours are posted. Most of the time I don't mind opening up if someone needs something, but today I was running between the pool chairs and the women's room painting. I had three colors in play and three brushes.
The phone has been ringing all day with some of the strangest requests. First was the man wondering if we could change the oil in his motor home ...... since he would be here anyway. Then there was the man wanting me to go down to the state park and try to locate his friend. He said he looked on the map and we were "just around the corner". Sure, let me stop what I am doing and close my business down to accommodate you .....
And the endless requests for reservations for this weekend. Yesterday I answered the phone and the woman started her list of requirements as if she were at the drive-thru window at McDonald's. She said she would take two RV sites and 6 tent sites and that they would be arriving early ....... After I could insert a word I informed her that all my sites had been reserved far in advance. It is a holiday weekend, people! School is out and folks are chomping at the bit to camp and swim, no matter how cold the water may be.
I am tired now. It is 6:00 and I would gleefully go to bed now, but I still have two more hours. Phone just rang again. My most unfavorite calls are the ones checking on their camp sites. If you secured your reservation with a credit card or with a deposit, it is still there waiting for your arrival. It will be yours until you show up and occupy the space, because, despite your request that I add the site next to you to your existing site ...... I don't bump reservations on a whim just because someone else has taken a fancy to it.
The weekend cannot end soon enough! Said the very tired campground hostess.
Preparations for Memorial Day have taken their toll on me! No different than any other year, we always seem to be a step behind. I still have painting to do in the restrooms, as well as finish painting the building.
It was a relief to see the cloudy skies this morning, I was hoping to get my house clean today and maybe rest a little. I was on my feet for almost 12 hours yesterday. I mowed awhile, then painted awhile. I don't know which was worse standing and painting, or waking and mowing. Which ever, I was in a world of pain last night. Couldn't possibly be my age!
I am still picking strawberries, but the yield is dwindling. After I vacuumed and mopped I wandered out to take a peek at my vegetable garden. The asparagus was not good this year. Just a few spears and they weren't all that thick. I was so tired I didn't even pull a weed! I came inside and was seriously considering a nap. Then the phone rang.
An incident that happened over the weekend resulted in a tenant being asked to leave. Like most of you, this is not a part of my job that I enjoy. You can be sure that I am just as upset as the other person is; but there is always a point of no return when I get pushed to my limit of tolerance.
I toyed with thoughts of unloading here, but decided not to. Suffice it to say that the tenant seems to think she can bully me into letting her stay. She might want to work on her people skills. After realizing that she had not swayed my decision she created quite the spectacle of herself by have a screaming tantrum for all to witness. Proving I had made the right decision.
More efforts to collect rent and lease payments balanced out my day, and I can honestly say I would rather have been walking behind the mower. I am having trouble trying to relax enough to be able to sleep. The sun is supposed to shine on me tomorrow.
The afternoon was looming large before me. All my reservations were here and settled. All my paper work and bill collecting duties attended to. This is what I do on Saturdays. This Saturday was just busy enough to keep me close to the office, but not busy enough that I was not longing for a nap.
No, not boredom, I was listening to a good book and putting together a puzzle on-line. HeWho was mowing, so maybe it was guilt? No, that was not it either. I just wanted to be doing something useful. Something that I could mark off my mental list of projects to complete. As usual, the storms had dampened my painting progress on the back of the building. The sun was out and a nice breeze could be enjoyed, but the ground was soggy and I just wasn't feeling up to trying to level a ladder.
As everyone knows, I am not a ladder type gal. It must be level and sturdy before I will even think about it. Since we have a good many tent campers, painting and touching up the bathrooms was not happening.
Many of you will recall the pool chairs I built last year. All were supposed to be out of pallet wood and HeWho says I will cut my fingers off with power tools was in charge of taking apart the pallets (which were FREE, by the way) and cutting boards to size and I was putting them together and painting them.
HeWho tired of the dismantling of pallets and went out and purchased 1 X 4's and 2 X 4's and cut them to size. We ended up with 8 very sturdy chairs that I painted and put together. I had some aqua paint that was on clearance and with white they were very pleasing to the eye. The wind and sun, not to mention the snow took it's toll and they need another coat of paint.
This year they will be a medium iris blue. That's what it looks like, anyway. Oops paint from Walmart, half price. With bright green stripes. Very festive. This is what I chose to spend my afternoon doing. I spread a tarp and had HeWho helps me on hand to flip them over. My plan was to paint the bottoms and then flip them over tomorrow to paint the topside.
It was an excellent plan, if I do say so myself. I didn't even finish one chair before the rain came. Now that I am back inside enjoying the internet capabilities, the sun is back out. the evening is going to pass by quickly now, and I will only have that one chair to show for a whole afternoon of work!
It was a good plan, though!
It is like I fell off the face of the earth!! No internet for almost a week and spotty before that. Too much time on the phone with Sprint with HeWho is nice. He would call, they would go through everything imaginable on our end and the internet would come back on ...... for just long enough to make me think it was working. Long enough to check my e-mail and sometimes even read a blog or two. Maybe even leave a comment. Then BOOM it was gone again. Leaving me without access to entertainment as I sit here at the registration desk.
So many things can happen in a week, you know. Finally, finally some savvy technician thought to check the satellite tower and found that it was down! I would think you would check that first, or even second ...... not on the eighth call from the same subscriber. I was the one fielding calls from campers. Some of them quite irate.
But all through those days when I was inspired to write (vent?), I was sorely disappointed. I do some of my best thinking while pulling weeds or picking strawberries. I am picking a gallon container full every morning. By evening I can pick about half as many again. I have given away so many that people are starting to run from me when I have strawberries in my hands.
Kamper DJ suggested preserves, so I looked up some recipes and found a super easy one that called for only three ingredients; strawberries, sugar and lemon juice. I had all that on hand, so I doubled the recipe and cooked them up, following the instructions to a "T". Maybe it was because I doubled the recipe, but it did not thicken and set. I even used a candy thermometer to check the temperature.
Nonetheless, I handed out jars of strawberry "syrup" to those kampers willing to subject their palate to my mistakes. Last night I made breakfast for supper and the strawberry syrup is great on pancakes.
The race is on to get everything "ready" for Memorial Day weekend. I have no sites available. This is a good thing, you know. But the people calling at the last minute are a curious bunch. One man kept insisting that he has camped here before. Did he want me to say, "Well, in that case, I will just give you someone else's site and they will just have to understand!"
Yesterday found me grouting tile on the newly built vanity top in the ladies room. I will need to wait until all the weekend campers leave tomorrow to tackle the men's. Then I will need to wash down all the walls and touch up the paint in both sides. The pool just needs a good vacuum job and another shock to be all ready for the big day.
The pavilion has a new metal roof topping it and the ceiling fans will go up today (I was worried about the heat the metal would collect). HeWho loves to shop on-line bought a huge smoker grill to put on the pavilion for guests to use. I am not really keen on this idea. I my mind's eye I see a fire in the making, or the lid being ripped off due to misuse. So, with that in mind I will be insisting on either renting it out, or a deposit to use it and then be inspected before the deposit is returned. I know my clientele .......
Many things have irritated me in the past week, but none more than HeWho tows. He keeps starting projects and failing to complete them. Nothing new about that, I am just tired.
We lost power night before last. 100 mph winds took out the power poles along the interstate and even flipped a semi. The storm came on fast and I watched out my window as it bent my peach tree nearly to the ground from side to side. The rain was coming in sheets and that was all I could see from my vantage point before I raced through and closed all the windows.
The power went out shortly after that and then our cell phones chimed with the "alerts". A little late if they were meant to warn us. Nothing can be done on our end to restore power, like everyone else, we are at the mercy of the power company. I had finally dozed back to sleep after trying to comfort Toni Louise. She seemed to be convinced that we were all going to die and would not let me hold or pet her. HeWho tows sleeps with his phone right next to him and it startled me back awake with a text message from one of our tenants who felt it necessary to tell us he had no power.
When I find myself with no power, the first thing I do is look outside to see if I am the only one lacking electricity. If the entire area is blacked out, then I call the power company. So, yeah, that text annoyed me. After little sleep, I dragged my unwilling person in to open the store and go out to survey the damage. No trees fell on any campers and there were no injuries. I figured not having power was a mere inconvenience. Ameren promised to restore us around noon. I made sure to not open the coolers or freezers and hope for the best. Nothing to do but pull weeds and answer the phone.
The phone worked because I had it forwarded to my cell. We had some late arrivals the night before .... in tents. They had all their bedding draped on the fence around the dog park and their air mattresses drying in the sun. The phone rang and the lady tenter seemed quite perplexed because my bathroom had no water. She realized that the power was off, but she wanted to take a shower! I explained that we needed power for the pump to pump the water. She seemed to be even more perplexed and I wondered if she thought I was sitting in the main building hoarding all the power and water .........
Another storm last night with lots of the wet stuff and wind, but the wind was mild compared to the previous night. If I can just make it through this weekend and get my projects finished .......
