Fall Camping

It’s awfully quiet during the weekdays! The trees are just starting to turn, and the nights are cool.  I can hear the loons calling back and forth at night, the chipmunks are gathering nuts and seeds all day long and Tami’s seen a fox in the driveway.

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.