Poland Spring Campground

Hey everyone!  Maxwell Moose here!

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post.  But Tami and David have had me working day and night!  After they finished the floor in the store, Tami was raking, emptying and moving plant pots and getting the garden’s put to rest.   Dave’s been cutting trees, working on some of the culverts, fixing up a couple sites and winterizing the buildings.

Tami took a break from her winterizing chores to take a walk with the boy scouts today

They’re working on their Naturalist and Forester badges, so they were looking for six different kinds of trees, six other woodland plants, and signs of wildlife.  We found it all!

We saw deer tracks down by the lake, and signs that the deer have been bedding down in the area.

The beaver have been quite busy too!  The boys were able to gather some twigs and wood chips that’d been gnawed on.  I would say there were at least six freshly “chopped” trees out there.   It also looks like the beavers are covering their hut with a fresh coat of mud and wet pine needles.  They’re definitely getting ready for winter!

As the boys ran ahead onto the point, they scared the eagle from the trees and he flew off over the lake.

They found lots of animal homes too

Those boys spent so much time investigating the woods, they didn’t get back to Tami’s house until after dark.

Last night, David took a walk and captured these shots of the full moon over the lake

Cool, huh?

Tami, Cookie and I took a late afternoon walk down to the lake the other day.  I told Tami my favorite season is summer-time, when all the kids are here and we get to play games and do arts and crafts and have story time.

Tami said she had a hard time choosing between summer and fall.  She liked summer for all the same reasons as me.  But in the fall, things are quieter and she has more time to talk with her campers or go to the campfire.  She really likes the warm days, cool nights and all the beautiful fall colors too.

Here’s some pictures from the trail, winding around the edge of the lake

While we were walking, we scared the baby eagle out of a tree!!  Crying out, he soared to the other side of the lake somewhere over by the golf course.

Tami was really hoping to see the baby loon too.  She’s kind of anxious to find out if he’s still doing okay.  (Remember, he was born later in the season than normal.)  Sadly, we didn’t see him, but we did hear a beaver slap a tail on the water in warning.  That was kind of cool!  Neither of us had heard it before.

We snuck up on a Downy Woodpecker working away at something  . . .

and a turtle sunning himself down by the beaver hut.

It’s hard to believe this is the last weekend the campground’s open.  We’re glad the weatherman’s predicting gorgeous weather, ’cause we really want to have a couple more campfires.  Mmmmmm - s’mores!

Besides, there’s nothing worse than trying to close up your camper in the rain!

The camp office closes for the season this Monday, but if you want to make a reservation of a week or more, or you have some questions, Tami will be answering the phones 10am to 4pm Monday through Friday.  She has a part time winter job, so if you get the answering machine, please leave a message.  She’ll get back to you ASAP.

Don’t forget, you can always reach her through the campground website too!  She lives on the internet checks her e-mail pretty regularly.

And of course we’ll keep blogging!  Tami wants to post some info on the local attractions, especially the places her family loves to visit.  I’m going to post some of my favorite recreation activities and keep you up to date on what Debbi and Bryant have up their sleeves for next summer.  If any of you have some favorite summertime photos from camping with us, we’d love to post them here too.  Just snail mail or e-mail them to me through the campground website.

So if the winter starts to feel like it’ll never end . . .

come back and visit our blog!  We’ll have you dreaming about the 2009 camping season in no time!

We hear an awful lot of fish stories here at Poland Spring Campground.  In the office, at the lake, over a cup of morning coffee and around the crackling campfire, fisherman 6 to 96 love to tell tales of the one that got away!

Tami likes to tease, telling them that seeing is believing.  And guess what?  They brought her proof!

Those are some nice looking fish boys!  Great job!

Dale and his wife Mary camped with us for a month this year.  Whenever Dale goes missing, we know exactly where he is . . . out in the middle of the lake somewhere!

This year, he reported averaging three fish a day, catching 21 in the first two days alone!

His wife stopped counting half way through the month.  She couldn’t keep up.

Don’t worry though, he assured me there’s plenty left for the rest of us!

Just ask his daughter,

And his grandson with his first fish!

A chip off the old block!  Look at that smile . . .

Dale told Tami he mostly caught 12 - 14 inch bass.

That’s a beauty!

And last but not least, here’s one of the Emery boys with his supper

I hear tell they taste pretty good over the campfire, but I think I’ll stick with lily pads.

What a fabulous crew we had this weekend!

It all started Thursday, when Dave gave the boy scouts a lesson in planting trees . .  . 

Then on Friday, 55 campers rolled in to participate in our annual Clean Up Weekend.  It’s free, in exchange for approximately five hours raking sites and planting trees on Saturday.  We met some new campers, and welcomed back some regulars who’ve been helping us for 8+ years now.

The big day was overcast . . . and   brrrrrrrrr   chilly!  But everyone was out and about by 8am, eager to get going!

We fed the hungry workers

Then they got to work!

Believe it or not, we actually had a couple sites with snow and ice under the leaves!

Here’s  a couple before pictures

the main street

and site 1.

And here’s what they looked liked after . . .

What a difference!  132 sites raked, as well as the roads, playground, fire circle, around the pool and the game room!  What used to take me a full month, raking every day, is now accomplished in a few hours thanks to these energetic campers.

But they weren’t done. Oh, no!   I then gave out about forty trees to happy, smiling faces like these

I can’t tell you how it warms my heart to see so many kids (and adults) eager to plant trees off the sides of their sites.  It’s such a wonderful, important thing they do . . . replacing young trees that are inevitably damaged during the course of a camping season.

Thanks so much to all our helpers this weekend! We couldn’t have done it without you!

The weather has been gorgeous these last couple of weeks!  The snow is melting nicely.  There’s still a few snow covered areas like here in the 40’s

but for the most part, the campground now looks like this

And Sam . . . your site looks like this

Isn’t that better!?

The roads are still too soft to drive on, but I think I can put those snow shoes away now.

Within the last week, we’ve watched the ice on the lake recede a few yards at a time. Last Sunday, there was still quite a bit off to the left of our point.  Today, I’m pleased to announce there wasn’t a smidgen of ice in sight.

The loons are back!  I can’t wait to hear their call over a roaring, crackling campfire.  It’s one of my favorite things.  There were ducks everywhere too!  At least fifty dotted the lake between our frontage and the golf course.

Even Mama Eagle was up on the edge of her nest, enjoying the warmth in the air

So keep thinking those Spring like thoughts!

I’ve been sub teaching a lot lately, and I’ve had my buddy Sam quite a bit. Every time I see him, he asks:

“Is the snow gone from my site yet?”

Well Sam, here’s your answer:

And no, I can’t put the the heaters on it!

But don’t feel too badly. You’re site could look like Big Joe’s:

See how he still has snow on his roof? Just look at his picnic table!! And I don’t know about you, but I don’t think he’ll be opening that front door for a week or so.

The whole campground is like this Sam. Bare spots of ground are poking through here and there, but I’m sinking in up to my knees in most places when I walk to the lake. I still had to wear snowshoes as of yesterday!

I think it’s going to melt wicked quickly now, though. You’ll see!

Remember this picture from my March 1st post?

Well, from the same spot, it looks like this now . . .

Isn’t that better?

Before you know it we’ll be seeing this:

And swimming like Cookie did yesterday!

So hang in there Sam. Spring is coming!

It was such a gorgeous day today - 50 degrees - sun streaming through my office window - bright blue sky -

Not thinking, I headed out on a walk without the snowshoes. About twenty steps later, I found myself knee deep in snow. Mumbling to myself, I reluctantly went back for snowshoes. Crunch, crunch, crunch, was the sound I made as I wound my way down the main street, through the playing field and out onto the trail along the edge of the lake. I wasn’t surprised to see a lot more open water today:

But I was surprised to find some tiny hints of spring! Like this patch of bare ground . . .

And evidence of beavers hard at work . . .

Homes being built:

And teeny, tiny buds on the trees . . .

In fact, I was so busy looking for spring, that I forgot to watch where I was going and before I knew it, I was knee deep in water. Whoo! And was it co-old! The hiking trail floods every spring in this ooooooone spot that winds oh-so-close to the edge of the lake.  But I didn’t see it was flooded because the trail was covered with three feet of snow!

After that, I sounded like this as I walked: Crunch, slosh, crunch, slosh, crunch, slosh.

Before heading home to take off my sopping wet boots, I checked on the eagles. As I came up to my viewing spot, I saw the nesting eagle up and moving around. She was probably poking at the nest a bit, or changing positions, because she sat back down before I could even focus on her. But with the blue sky behind her, you can easily see the top of her head -

Think spring everybody!

A special note to Sam W: sorry buddy, but there’s still a lot of snow on your site. I’ll keep you posted though.

Okay, it’s official. I’ve had enough of this

The above photo was taken from my front porch. So just in case any of you out there are saying,

“Hey, that doesn’t look too bad -”,

THIS is what I see from ground level:

And this from my front window:

The white stuff isn’t done falling yet, either. They’re predicting 10 - 14 more inches here, and we’ve gotten maybe eight of them so far today.

For those of you who like to count down the weeks . . . and you know who you are . . . we have eight and a half.

EIGHT AND A HALF!

And boy, oh, boy, I can’t wait to see this from my front window . . .

Think Spring everybody!

We were without power for over 12 hours!

This is certainly NOT camping weather . . .
I haven’t trudged down to the lake yet, but I did walk around the upper level of the campground, in amongst the campsites, to capture these pics

. . . these are images from this morning.

Sigh.

But I did see this yesterday afternoon . . .

It looked like she was poking at the nest. Probably getting it ready.

I snapped this shot, cursing myself for not bringing the bigger lens. So I ran (as fast as one can run on snowshoes) back home, grabbed the proper lens and ran (not quite so fast this time) back to the point. I set up my tripod and staked out the nest for an hour.

Let’s just say all I managed to get from all that running is some serious exercise.