It felt more like late March, early April!

I had to listen to Tami grumble for the fifty thousandth time about how she hasn’t been able to wear her snowshoes except one time . . . and aren’t we living in Maine after all . . . and what the heck is going on with the weather lately?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I didn’t need my scarf, or my ear muffs, or even my boots today!  And there’s only 3 inches of snow right now.  But it is extra super crunchy.

“How crunchy is it,” you ask?

It’s so crunchy, wildlife in the next county  heard us coming.  Tami couldn’t blame it on Cookie this time either, because Cookie was walking on top the snow!

There were tons of ice fisherman out on the lake,

just not in this photo Tami took. They were mostly down by the State Park. There was also a group of people who looked like they were walking the length of the lake.  But super, cautious Tami wouldn’t let us put one hoof, paw or foot on the ice.  Not even the edges.  The minute she sees open water waaaay over by the beaver hut, she gets nervous.

But she did let us walk the red-dotted trail to get there.  Cookie really, really wanted to get in the water, but the current can be kind of strong in this one spot, and the water’s awfully cold right now.  No matter how Cookie pouted, Tami wouldn’t give in.

There were signs the beavers had been out and about.  We could hear the blue jays, chickadees and the ravens calling back and forth.  But alas, no eagles could be seen.

It’s still a touch early, but with all the warm weather, Tami was kind of hoping they’d be out and about.

Perhaps next week!

It was a beautiful day.  Blue sky, crisp cold air, powdery snow.

As we came out of the woods and stepped onto the lake, Cookie stopped to look around.  I knew the feeling.  There’s just something about walking across the lake that first time, and seeing it all from a different perspective

.

We walked right past the muskrat hut . . . .

and rounded the corner of our point by the eagle’s island.  Right in front of us was a family, ice fishing.

Hugging the shoreline, we stayed on the ice.

“What do you say, we keep going?” Tami asked, as she nodded up toward the town beach area.

“Sure!” I said.  We’d never been that far before.  Usually we turned back into the campground at this point, then followed David’s red-dot trail home.

Not only did we walk through the town beach, but we followed the lake right up to where it first narrows

Tami could see a ton of people in the cove ahead, so she decided it was time to turn back.  Besides, the Pat’s game was due to start soon.  She wasn’t taking a chance on missing that.

So we headed back the way we’d come.

We did have enough time for me to snap a picture of Tami and Cookie though.

When we reached what the Wight’s now call the Turtle Release spot, we climbed the banking.  Tami looked back and took one last look at the lake.

There were a few more people out there than before.

We didn’t see the eagles.  And we didn’t see the Pileated Woodpecker (but we heard him plenty!).  But it was a great hike.

We turned for the last few feet home

I sure hope we don’t get the rain on Monday the weathermen are predicting.

One of our seasonal campers, buttoned up tight

the tree that Ed planted . . .

The lakeside trail . . .

The wind was blowing pretty hard . . .

The island with the house . . .

The Eagle's Nest

A splash of color

The ice is forming

A tipped picnic table in the 60's

Interesting . . .

We aren’t sure yet if this round of snow will melt . . . time will tell!  It was a pretty snowfall, to be sure.

“Who knows when it’ll be this warm again?” she said.

Little did we know, the weathermen would be predicting 6 – 12 inches of snow for Wednesday!

I told Tami I wanted to see some wildlife. She told me not to get my hopes up.  “It’s pretty late in the season, Maxx,” she warned.

That Tami!  She’s such a glass-half-full-kind of person!

It was already getting kind of dusk-ish out, but down by the lake, the sun lit up the other shore . . .

the island with the house . . .

Looking off toward Range Pond State Park beach . . .

Tami immediately started snapping pictures, but I had spied something better.

“Psssst!” I whispered.

She didn’t hear me.

“Psssssssssssssssssst!” I said a little louder.

She waved a hand my way.

“OVER HERE!” I yelled.

“Geesh! Wait a minute! The sun won’t be shining like this forever -”

“I don’t think the eagles will be on their island much longer either -”

Tami whipped around so fast, I thought she was gonna fall in the water!

BOTH eagles were sitting pretty, just waiting for Tami to take their photo; one on the nest and another on a nearby tree.   If you look back through the blog, you’ll see that once the babies leave the nest, we rarely see them together again until February, when they get ready to lay another set of eggs. Tami was so excited, she almost missed seeing the cormorant on a nearby log too . . .

And then, on the way back home, we also saw how hard the beavers have been working along the lakeside trail.

This tree that they took down is about eight feet long.  It fell in such a way that it was caught in the bushes, so the beavers are stripping it of its bark, and cutting it into three foot chunks.

So much for not seeing any wildlife, huh?

Still, in all her years at the campground, Tami hasn’t seen a beaver in the wild yet.  She’s heard their tail slap the water in warning, but that’s it.

Beavers are pretty interesting mammals:  They have only one partner, can live about 24 years, their kits stay with them for about 2 years with the parents sharing duties, and they’re second only to humans in their ability to change their environment.

One of these days, she swears she’ll have a picture to show you!

Friday recreation began with story time and ME!

There was bocci and bubble play and bug catchers too!

When Tami heard about the bug catchers, she shuddered.  “Why on earth would you catch bugs!?”

To race them of course!!   Sheesh.  Doesn’t she know, you have to like bugs if you’re going to be a super agent or an adventurer.  I mean, you never know when you might get stuck while hiding from the bad guys and you find yourself in this tiny little space, listening carefully for that big, bad guy, and then you see ~you’re surrounded by BUGS!  Lots and lots of bugs!

Maaaaaybe, if you’re lucky, you’d get stuck with this guy -

but c’mon!  What are the chances of that?  With Tami’s luck she’d get trapped with a bunch of spiders.  She hates spiders. They make her scream like a little girl.  I’ve heard it.

Friday ended with Family Bingo in the rec hall.   Debbie plays quick stand-up games, long cover-all games and all kinds of games in between.  Lots and lots of people were winners!

On Saturday my little adventurer campers tried making cups from plain paper, then they drank from them.  After that we designed paper airplanes to test fly.

Of course we had to have adventurer training!  Duh!  Over 20 kids came to practice lassoing, running the obstacle course and of course to practice sling-shotting water balloons.  I mean, what kind of adventurer would you be, if you couldn’t toss a water balloon right where you needed it most??

There was jewelry making, a knot tying contest and an adventurer hayride too!

Debbie handed out compasses to everyone so they’d know which way David was going . . .

I wanted to ride on the wagon too, but Debbie and David wouldn’t let me.  They didn’t want me to knock anyone off with my antlers.  So I tried to get in the passenger seat to co-pilot David, but my antlers wouldn’t fit through the door!

Sigh.

So  I had to stay behind and wait with my faithful, moose-loving bodyguard, Joey.

and we waited.

And we waited.

Until finally, the hayride came back!

Here I am with some of my little campers

And here’s some more!

I’m so glad you all came in spite of Hurricane Irene!  I had an awesome time and I hope you did too.

to build Tinkerbell Houses!  Just look at the fancy mansions they built . . .

A lot of thought and creativity went into these homes

and in some cases, it was a family project!

I hope the Tinkerbell’s in the Poland Spring Campground forest like them!

Since we were all ready down at the lake, Debbie thought it’d be loads of fun to play sink the ship!

Then she made my camping buddies walk the plank!

Aaaargh!   Everyone had a blasted good time!

As a matter of fact, there were so many cool activities, I can’t write about them all in only one measly blog post! So look for more piratey-type photos tomorrow!

And we all know how much Tami loves her loons!  It’s been “the loons this!”  and “the loons that!” and “Aren’t the loons soooooo cute!” all . . . day . . . long.

She used to talk about ME like that!

Here’s the empty nest, the first clue the babies hatched, because right away, Mom and Dad coax them to the water.

They’ll never set foot on land again, until they’re ready to have chicks of their own.

So Paul and his family went about fishing and trolling.  It didn’t take long until they ran into the loons family.

And sure enough they didn’t just find one ~

They found two babies!

How awesome is that?   They’re sooooo cute.  But soooo vulnerable.   Snapping turtles and large fish are predators from below; the eagles from above.  Mom and Dad are going to have to keep them very, very close.

Sorry about the delay – this spring has just been so much fun.  Dave opened the pool, Tami planted all her pretty flowers, the guys put the boats in the lake, and we finally got to meet our new playmate Maggie!

As you can tell, Maggie had a fight with the waterballoons . . . and she said the waterballoons won!

Maggie’s gonna help out with recreation!  She’s a lot of fun, we had a blast with all the events packed in to Memorial Day Weekend.  She did a great job running Candy Bar Bingo, helping Debbie out with arts and crafts, and playing wiffleball.  My favorite was story time

with a cup of Moose Mix!  Yum!

Even though we got rained on a little bit, it didn’t stop us!  We still had our Memorial Day Parade – we held our umbrellas in one hand and our noise makers in the other.  It was a great time!

I made lots and lots of new friends ~ and found some old ones too!

Oooo!  Good news!  Mama Loon is back this year, and sitting on her nest.  Do you know what that means?  We’ll hopefully be seeing baby loons soon!

Hey, by the way, before I crawled into bed last night I caught a glimpse at this weekend’s Rec Schedule and guess what?

. . . the Bouncy House is coming out this weekend!  C’mon! Come and play!

Everyone pitched in, and we really, really appreciated the help . . .

Even if we did have to show some people how to properly use a rake . . .

People seemed to be having a really good time

I know we did!

Opening weekend is always so much fun.  I love catching up with families ~ seeing what they did over the winter months, and checking the height of the children.  Quite a few have grown taller than Tami.  Not that it takes much to do so, mind you.

Little trees were transplanted in the afternoon.  I was glad to see several campers take this  job very, very seriously.

After all, what kind of campground would we be without our trees!

Our helpers didn’t just work all weekend, they found time to fish ~

To kayak

and to hang out with friends.

The weather cooperated for all but an hour, when thunderstorms rolled through.  But they were quickly over, and the sun shined once again.

Sunday morning, with the help of our camping friends, we offered a complimentary Mother’s Day Breakfast . . .

And it was yuuuuuummy!

We hope all our camping Mom’s had a fabulous Mother’s Day Weekend!

And we hope to see you all soon!

I took Cookie for a walk after sub teaching today, and was a little surprised by how much snow still clung to the ground in spots.

the 80's

Some of the roads looked a little more encouraging though.

Over in the 20's

While there was less snow in the 20′s, than say the 4o’s, I was sinking in up past the soles of my hiking boots in a lot of places, especially on the road to the lake.

As we walked, I took the liberty of taking a few pictures of seasonal campsites, for those of you who are wondering what the conditions are back here . . .

Terry, I’m so sorry, but I think you get the prize for the most stubborn snow in the camp!

The ice isn’t completely out yet either.  From our lake point, over to Route 26, has opened up, but this is the view toward Range Pond State Park

To the left of this lookout, past the Island, still has a thin coating of ice.  Hopefully that will be gone in a few days.

And look!  Our eagle is still on her nest.

I was a little worried about her after the wet, wet, heavy snow of last weekend.  That nest weighs over 750 pounds now, and the tree is a thin, red pine.  We worry through every wind storm and big snowfall . . .

Hopefully those babies will be born soon and we’ll be watching them opening weekend!