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?

Hi everybody!   Are you all getting ready for Halloween??   I’m trying to decide between my pirate and Mighty Moose costumes.  Which would you choose?

Yesterday, I saw both adult eagles down on the point.  And fishing right under them was the baby loon!  They seemed to be watching that baby loon pretty closely, and I got a little worried. So I ran up the hill to find Tami or David.  The lights were on in the store, so I flung open the door  .  . .

And screamed!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

I turned to run away.  A hand reached out to grab my antler.  Then I heard a deep, raspy voice from under that mask.

“Maxwell!  It’s me!”

Yeah.  I knew it was Tami all along.

“Oh!  I know!” I said.  “You’re gonna be Darth Vader for Halloween!”

She narrowed her eyes, punched me in the arm, and shook her head.  Lifting a corner of the gas mask, she said,  “No, Max. Dave and I are sprucing up the store.  Wanna see?  Be careful where you step . . . ”

Tami told me she, David and Jeff spent part of Columbus Day and all of Tuesday moving everything out of the store and into the Poland Spring Room.  It went from this

to this . . .

to this!

Then she and David washed the floor, sanded it, acid washed it and let it dry over the weekend.  On Monday they brought out the epoxy paint.  They’re using the kind where you throw the little colored specks on top the wet paint.

It took about three hours for Tami and Dave to roll the whole store

And boy do they smell!  Um, I mean, the paint stinks.  Not Tami and David.  (cough)

I blocked my nose the whole time I was talking to Tami.  No wonder she’s wearing the gas mask.

I still think it makes a great Halloween costume though.  She’s scarier than usual!

When they were done the room looked like this

Isn’t it great!  Now Tami won’t feel so bad when the kids do this on her floor

Today, Tami put a clear coat over the whole floor to protect the paint and the flecks.  She has to do another tomorrow.  Next week she’ll start filling the store again.  I saw a sparkle in her eye as she turned in a circle, inspecting all that empty space . . .

You don’t think she’ll do some rearranging, do you?

We saw an awful lot of this today

and I said goodbye more times than I wanted to. You’d think, that after 18 summers it would be easier to do.

It isn’t.

Year after year, I watch as friendships are formed - and bonds grow strong between adults . . . families and kids like these

I can’t begin to count the number of scrap pieces of paper I hand out so e-mail addresses and phone numbers can be exchanged . . . everyone wanting to stay in touch through the long winter months.

Our last activity of the year was a massive bonfire in the playing field.

This was a first for us!  And it turned out to be a lot of fun.  Fifty people showed up . . .

Some even brought snacks to nibble on while the flames reached skyward.

I polled the kids, asking how they felt about having to close up their campers and go home . . . not able to return until May 1st.  This expression says it all -

Poor little guy!  Winter will pass fast .  . . before you know it, you’ll be back, hanging with Maxwell Moose again.

Dave and I stayed as the crowd and fire grew smaller

and smaller . . .

and finally went out (with a little help from the hose).

A big shout out to everyone who joined us this weekend. It was a gorgeous one!  And we hope to see you all next spring!

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!

]]> http://polandspringcamp.com/blog/camp-scenes/fall-is-popping-out-all-over/feed/ http://polandspringcamp.com/blog/camp-scenes/fall-is-popping-out-all-over/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PolandSpringCampground/~3/403869389/ http://polandspringcamp.com/blog/camp-scenes/fish-tales/#comments Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:23:49 +0000 Tami http://polandspringcamp.com/blog/?p=156

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.

Here’s an adult eagle with its baby

Right now, the baby eagle is all over the lake, so he’s hard to find.  Especially since he blends into the trees so well.

Here’s a great shot of a turtle sunning himself

Can you see the dragonfly sunning himself on the turtle’s back?

And here are the fox pictures I promised.  This little guy came trotting through the sites in the middle of the quiet week, right by Jeff and Debbie’s camper

He made his way to the edge of the volleyball court and laid in the sun.

Kind of cute, huh?

Look at these cool pictures Tami took of the Mom loon feeding the baby loon  yesterday!

Mama reached up high to stretch her wings.  Feeding babies is hard work!

After the loons moved out of sight, Tami was about to leave when I hollered, “Look up there! Is it a plane?  Superman?”

The eagle!  Tami kept her camera trained on him, hoping he’d dive for a fish or two.  But he must not have seen anything good to eat, because just like the loon family, he moved out of sight too.

One of our campers reported seeing the fox sun himself on the volleyball court this morning.  Jeff (the camper) and Myndi (Tami’s sister) both got some pictures of him.  Tami’s going to try and get copies so she can post them.

Things sure have been pretty quiet this week.  I can’t wait for our Fall Special people to come back tomorrow for weekend #2!

All the Fall Special campers checked in last weekend and we’re looking forward to having them the next five weeks.  Paula volunteered to run a dart tournament Saturday and we showed the movie RV for the kids.  I love that movie!  Especially the part where Robin Williams has his motor home stuck on the peak of the mountain road, and he has both hands on the windshield wipers while he’s jumping up and down, up and down, trying to force it over the edge  . . .

It was so humid last Saturday, Tami and Ben took Cookie down to the lake for a swim after lunch.  There, they were lucky enough to see Mama loon teaching her baby how to catch fish!  They were only about a hundred yards off shore!   It was really cool.

Mama would dive, coming back up with a fish.  She swished it around in the water until the baby (on the left) came over.  Tami said she was kind of far away, but it looked like the mother loon would let the fish go just before the baby got there, and the baby would snatch it back out of the water. Ever since then, Tami keeps going down to the lake with her bigger camera, hoping to get some better pictures to post here.

This year, the loon parents lost their first set of eggs.  Luckily, they were able to re-nest and the little one you see above was born right around the Fourth of July Weekend.  We’ve all been watching him pretty closely hoping he’d survive.  Baby loons have to be careful of snapping turtles and hungry eagles!

Now the rush is on for Mama and Papa loon to teach him everything he knows before ice begins to form on the lake!  Tami and I will try to keep tabs on him and keep you posted.

Labor Day Parade!

There were pin wheels . . .  Red, white and blue streamers . . .  Patriotic hats . . .

Debbi handed out some wicked loud whistles that had all the parents cringing

And then they were off to circle the campground!

I’m not sure how the little one below slept through it all.  You could hear this parading crew from the lake!

It was a great, end-of-the summer weekend!  There were times when Tami and I thought we were seeing double . . .

And there were lots of cute moments too -

(I always wondered how the campground stayed so clean!)

But now our recreation program is done for the summer.   Sigh.

While Tami, Debbi and Bryant are busy planning the theme weekends for 2009, you can still enjoy some quiet fall camping, you know!  Cool, crisp nights, the call of the loon, friends toasting marshmallows with friends . . .

Fall camping can be a lot of fun!

Maxwell Moose here with all my friends . . .

We had a great time today!

There were egg and water games in the playing field . . . we made lobsters and lobster bouys at arts and crafts. Then we headed down to the playing field where Debbi (far right) and Bryant were shooting off water ballons with help from our friend Linda.

They shot them low, for the little ones

and higher for the bigger kids!

Look how wet you get~

If you catch one without it hitting the ground or breaking, you get a free ice cream! If you don’t believe me, ask these guys!

Great job you two!

Heeeeeey! Bryant! What are you up to??

As if they weren’t wet enough already!!

At 7:30 tonight everyone gathered at the office for a light parade around the campground!

What a whole lotta flashing and blinking and bright colors! Wicked cool.

The good news is, the fun isn’t over yet! Most of my little buddies are staying until Monday, so we have another whole day of fun stuff planned for Sunday too!