Have you ever seen algae bloom?

When I got to the visitor's center for work yesterday, I noticed a new color on the pond.

The green algae had suddenly turned a rose color. I'm thinking this is called an algae bloom. I asked Annmarie, the biologist, but she wasn't certain, but thought it probably was.

It certainly was colorful. What a contrast from the greens of the woods.

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I had 26 folks come into the visitor's center today. That has to be a record number! I even sold several items in the gift shop this weekend. Having people stop sure does help with the boredom. When I compare this to the 200 visitors a day and $1000 in sales I did on Tuesdays at Pea Island NWR, it's sad, but hopefully visitation is on the rise.

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I'm pretty well organized to head for Chicago tomorrow. I'm hoping to be on the road shortly after seven.

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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy

The Sunday Blast from the Past

While I was camp hosting at Lewis and Clark State Park in Washington during the early fall of 2006, the other hosts and I took a day trip to visit Mt. Rainier National Park. The Putz's are a fulltiming RV couple originally from Washington, so they took it upon themselves to show me a few fabulous places in their home state. I really appreciated that, since my transportation at that time was a moped. A one hundred mile trip was not something I was going to do on the moped. :)

There was still plenty of snow up on the mountain, even in September.

While we were taking in the sights, the Putz's struck up a conversation with another visiting couple. It turns out, they were from Kasson, Minnesota. How's that for a small world? You see, I lived in Kasson for the ten years previous to my taking to the road!

When we headed out from Lewis and Clark SP, I was wearing shorts because of the nice warm weather. I didn't take the altitude at Mt. Rainier into consideration. That was a mistake. I was getting goose bumps, and it wasn't just from the magnificent scenery!

It's hard not to take a million pictures when you are in the grandeur of the mountains.

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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy

Best weather since I've been here!

I woke up to sunny skies and temps in the 50's this morning with low humidity! What a marvelous, beautiful day it has been. Sunny skies, a nice breeze, and no need for air conditioning. In the six weeks I've been at Swan Lake, this has been the tops in the weather department.

Emma and I took a long hike this morning and I wasn't wilted by the time we returned. I took a quick trip to Brookfield this morning to get some more nijer seed for the finches, and found an outdoor tent selling produce. I bought some new potatoes, one ear of corn, and a couple of tomatoes. I sure hope the tomatoes aren't hothouse. I didn't want to get too carried away since I will be leaving on Monday for a four day trip to visit at my daughter's house in Dyer, Indiana. (I guess I'm not really visiting her house, but it will be nice to take a shower and not worry about conserving water!) I've calculated it to be about 420 miles to her house. A long drive, but much easier since I'll be taking the car rather than the motorhome.

Time to get back outside and enjoy this unseasonable weather.

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy

The word is out!!

I guess the location of my bird feeders has been spread around the raccoon population. Now they're not even waiting for the cover of darkness.

The first stop is under the feeders that are hanging on long pieces of rope or string so the squirrels can't get to them.

The coons sift the seed hulls through their front paws looking for missed morsels.

Time out for a scratch!

Then, it's up the tree trunk to the feeder that they can get their hot little hands on. This is one of the young from this year. It's sibling was too shy (so far) to venture in this close.

Since I didn't put any seed in that feeder today, the young one headed back for the safety of the woods.

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I guess I can report that there is an abundant, healthy raccoon population on this refuge. I'm thinking I may not fill that feeder any more that is within their reach. We'll see.

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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy

A Lettermen Evening

No, that's not David Letterman. Since my outside CD player decided to work, I put on the "Best of the Lettermen" CD tonight and chilled out. That CD brought back many memories from the 60's...not all good, but not all bad, either.

This was a kind of chill out day. Rain and thunderstorms all morning, and occasional storms this evening. Temps did rise into the high 80's this afternoon, and similar weather is predicted for tomorrow. Not much else to report for today...one of those ho-hum days.

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy

A late evening visitor

After Emma and I came back into the RV last night, we had a visitor to the campsite.

Apparently, the bird feeders are attracting more than birds.

What a hoot is was to watch this fellow sift through the oil seed hulls looking for some missed goodies.

Since I came back from Minnesota, I've noticed two things. When I take Emma for her last outs, I, and Emma, have been hearing some critter scrambling up the tree with the bird feeders. Then, when I take her on her first outs each morning, the feeder closest to the tree trunk is always empty and the top is strewn on the ground.

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I guess that mystery is solved! I think this raccoon is a male, because he travels alone. We have also had a female with three young travel through our site several times in the last week.

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Today, I did the laundry and went to town on a grocery run. While in Chilicothe, I checked in at the local vets to see if there was a dog kennel in the area. They gave me a number to call of a kennel that they highly recommended. I've been thinking of kenneling Emma while I take a trip to visit Robyn, Dennis, and Avery next week. Dennis is not crazy about dogs, and it would sure make the four day trip easier for me. Well, it turns out that there is no room at the inn for Emma. Apparently, people call two months in advance to have their dogs at this kennel, and travel from as far away as St. Louis (that's about 150 miles away) to board them there. So, ditch that plan. :(

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I think I'll ask Robyn to see if there is a kennel in Dyer, Indiana.

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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy

The Sunday Blast from the Past

On August 31, 2006, I arrived at Lewis and Clark State Park in Washington state to begin a seven week stint as a campground host.

I had been told this would be a more physical than social job, and that description was correct. Besides selling fire wood and answering camper's questions, I had plenty of physical chores to do which include scraping, priming, and painting the Environmental Learning Center building.




I also had to dig up all the boulders surrounding three flower and plant areas. Over the years, the boulders had sunk in the ground and it was my mission to unearth them all, put in new soil, and reposition them. Manual labor, to be sure...





This park is located in the old growth Douglas fir forest with huge fir trees that are around 600 years old. And underneath those fir trees are numerous kinds of mushrooms.


Most of the stuctures in Lewis and Clark State Park were constructed in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). They are beautiful stuctures and must be maintained as they were constructed because they are now on the historic building registry. That includes the cedar shake roofs. Those roofs require a great deal of upkeep. There are two picnic shelters like this one, and while I was there, the larger shelter was rented out twice; once for a wedding, and once for a native American Pow-wow.



I was provided with a full hookup site in amongst the Douglas fir trees. It was a beautiful site. I spent one memorable evening sitting at my campfire while listening to the eerie sounds of the drums floating through the forest from the pow-wow. I'll never forget that. It brought all kinds of images to my mind of what it must have been like a couple of hundred years ago. That was truly a blast from the distant past!
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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy