Squirrel!

Hey everyone!  Maax here!  Hope you had a grrrrrr-eat Halloween!   No trick or treaters came by, so we got to keep  all the candy!

Lately, every time Ben and I go outside to kick the soccer ball around the front lawn, all we hear is this annoying chattering.

And it isn’t Tami.

Those squirrels are busy, busy, busy, let me tell you.  Back and forth, back and forth.

And I think they’re getting desperate!  Look at this!

Squirrel butt!!

He was in and out and in and out of that pumpkin for the better part of a day!  Finally, Tami made Ben and I put those pumpkins waaaaaaay back in the woods.  Tami didnt’ want those theiving squirrels stealing her blankets.

What?  You don’t think a squirrel could steal a blanket?

Try telling the squirrel that!

I mean, really!  Where did he think he was gonna put it?

The brown trout are released!

I was kind of . . . sort of . . . patiently waiting for Tami to be done working last Monday so we could take a walk through the campground.  She’d just gotten done telling me that if I asked when we were leaving one more time, the answer would be NO . . . when we heard a really big truck coming in the gate.

And it had the Maine Wildlife symbol on the door!!

I didn’t have to ask again.  Three seconds later, Tami and I had our sneakers on.  She grabbed both her cameras and we raced that truck past all the campsites to the lakefront.

And we beat it too!

They backed up to the water, as close as they could get before the it became too muddy and uneven.  But they were still pretty far away.  I couldn’t figure out how they were going to let those fish go, until they pulled out a hose and hooked it up to water tank number six

See how the top is open?  That’s so he can watch and make sure all the fish get released.

The hose reached all the way to the edge of the water

And when they were ready, they opened the valve and let them go!

And they’re free!!

Swim little fishies!  Swim!!

They emptied two tanks in less than half an hour.  I found out that these beauties are 1 to 2 years old.  They release brown trout into Lower Range Pond every fall, but we’d missed being here for the last two times.  We’re so glad we were home so we could watch and ask questions.

I could tell that the really cool fish-release-guys were glad too.

After they left,  Tami and I hung out on the lakefront for a bit.   Sometimes, the eagle shows up right after the fish are let go, and Tami was hoping to get some pictures of him hunting for lunch.   He never did show up, but she got these cool pics of the lakefront

Trying to get to the lake . . .

What a day I had!!

I was walking through the woods, minding my own business, when I heard the geese!  They were back!

Well, I’m not allowed to go to the lake by myself you know.  So I ran back to find Tami and whine, plead, ask her to take me.

But she wasn’t at the house, or the workshop or in the playing field

I ran up one road and then down another

No Tami.

She wasn’t on the playground or in the rec hall.  So I checked all the campsites

But she wasn’t there either!  And I could see that sparkling water just beyond the trees . . . and I could hear the geese calling . . .

Then I saw David.  He was winterizing campsites and tipping picnic tables for the winter.

“Dave! Dave!  Where’s Tami!?”

He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  It wasn’t my turn to watch her.”

“Daaaaaaa-vid!”

“Hold onto your antlers,” he said.  “Last I knew, she mentioned something about having to do something in the store  -”

I ran up the big hill by Big Joe’s site, stopping to catch my breath once, twice, three times, only to findthe store door was locked.  So I peeked in one of the back windows and

YIKES

Tami was at it again!

“What??  Are we being invaded??” I asked.

“mo, quissy.  om fluwng nahtre lecar acdot,”  she said.

Well, that’s what it sounded like with the mask on!   Finally, she took it off and said,  “No, silly.  I’m putting another layer of clear coat on the store floor so last year’s paint job will last longer.”

I tried to get her to ditch the paint job and take me to the lake.  It’s such a pretty day today, I said.  It’s going to rain tomorrow, I said.

But she said she’d already started the job and had to finish it.  And then she’d promised Ben she’d do this with him

Pretty cool, huh??

Maybe it won’t rain so hard tomorrow.  Those weather men are wrong all summer long, so I can hope!

Closing Weekend??!!

What?

Tami just told some guy on the phone that this is our last weekend!

Ack!

It can’t be the last one!  We just opened the campground yesterday, right?

No?

But . . .

but . . .

I never got in the boucy house!

I never got to drive the golf cart!  I never got to taste a half a chicken at the B-B-Q

or take a kayak ride . . . or get a tattoo

Tami promised me a tattoo!!!

Sigh.

I can’t just sit around and let them close my campground.  I need more relay races!  More water balloon slingshot!  More hayrides and magicians and ice cream making and arts and crafts and science guy and bubble play and volleyball and horseshoes and

Storytime!  Who’s gonna read me stories now?

Awwww!

Maybe Alex will talk to Tami and Dave for me.

Maybe not.

I know!  I’ll talk to Santa . . .

No, no.  Santa’s too busy gettin’ ready for Christmas.

Only 76 days left you know.

Debbie and Bryant and I  can round up the 2009 pirate crew!  Arrrrgh!

Or the PS Campground Justice League!

Nooooo, wait.  You’re all in school.  Sigh.

Oh!  Oh!  What about the Burger King!  He’d  fight for more cookouts and campfires!

Or a gorilla!  I bet he’d scare Tami so bad, she’d do anything to keep the camp open!

No, that won’t work.  Tami’s pretty scary too sometimes

she’d probably scare the gorilla.

That’s it!  I’m taking the golf cart and driving to . . . to . . . somewhere!  And I’m not coming back until Tami and Dave keep the campground open.

So there!

Buuuuut . . .  Bryant says I can’t do that either.

I don’t have a drivers license.

I can’t do anything I want to do!

Sigh.

Double Sigh.

Guess I’ll just sit here and pout till opening day on April 30th.

What?  Someone’s calling me . . . it’s . . . it’s . ..

Tami!

She wants to take a walk to the lake with Cookie!

She wants to check on the beaver huts and the eagles and the loons.  Do I hear the geese and the ducks??

Tami and Ben are dusting off their snow shoes!

Yes!

Hey!  Come back and check the blog this winter, okay?  I’ll post lots of cool stuff . . .

and maybe I’ll even think of a way to get in that bouncy house!

Fall Kayaking

Tami closed up the campground store late afternoon yesterday so she and her friend Sue could go kayaking on Lower Range Pond.

Do you think they’d ask me to tag along?

Nooooooo!

Shucks!

Fall kayaking is so pretty, too!  The lake was calm as could be, so it reflected all the red, yellow and orange tinted trees like a mirror.

The first place Tami and Sue headed was to the beaver hut, but they didn’t see anything happening there.  Of course, they were probably chatting back and forth so much, the beavers heard them coming a mile away!

But on their way back . . . heading toward the state park beach,  Tami discovered a new beaver hut!

We can watch this one from the campground shoreline.  With her telephoto lens, Tami should be able to get some great shots!

No geese to report.  Or eagles.  Or loons.  Only one lone duck  landed as the sun was dipping below the tree tops.   But Tami said the geese and ducks were on their way.  In the meantime, views like this one made it all worthwhile.

Local Hiking Trails

Hey!  Maxx here!!

This summer, Tami, Dave and Ben discovered two awesome hiking trails.  And they’re only 15 to 20 minutes away from the campground!  Sheesh.  You think they would have found them sooner . . .

The first was Mt Apatite in Auburn Maine, just off of Route 11.

Mt. Apatite was an important part of Maine’s mining history.  They mined commercial feldspar, and found (among other precious minerals and crystals) green and pink tourmaline. So if you like rock hounding, this is a great spot!

Tami said she saw lots of quartz and mica on the trails, and she brought me a couple pieces.

Dave said he and Ben got to play with their new hiking GPS a little bit . . . this photo makes me think of the commercial for UP

“With my handy dandy GPS, we’ll NEVER get lost!”

Not only didn’t they get lost, but they found two geo-caches with it!

Ben was pretty excited to have found these humongous polywogs sunning just below the surface of the water, too.

He said it was the best hike ever!

But he says that about aaaaaaallll the hikes.

Later on in the summer, they hiked to the top of  Rattlesnake Mountain off of Rt. 85.

Tami said it it was a nice hike with an early upward climb and fabulous views!   They took a picnic lunch and looked out over Sebago Lake, Panther Pond and Jordan’s Bay.

Then they kept following the trail across the top of the mountain to another lookout point with a view of the White Mountains.

Unfortunately, the geo cache on this mountain was missing, but Dave and Ben left a note in a bottle in it’s place so the next treasure hunters would have something to find.

Tami and Dave love to try out new hiking trails and area attractions.  After 19 years of exploring with the kids, they have a wicked long list of local things to do from hiking, to beaches to shopping to wildlife farms to museums!  Everyone who checks into the campground is given a list.  If your looking for recommendations, just ask Tami!  Or you can click on a tag at the right of the screen to bring up past blog posts.

Did ya notice that Alex and I didn’t get to go hiking this year?

We had to stay behind and work.

I think we’re gonna have to do something about that in 2010!

Fall is officially here . . .

“Where?” I asked Tami.  “Where’s Fall?”

“All around us,” she said.

I couldn’t believe it was here already, so I took a little walk around the campground and look what I found!

From the tips of tree branches, down to the ground, color is peeking through everywhere.  Acorns and pine cones plinked and plunked onto trailer roofs.  One acorn even fell on my head!  Ouch!

I swear a chipmunk laughed at me too.

Tami and I were going through the photos she took this summer, remembering all the wicked cool recreation we’d had and you know what we decided?

We have some well dressed campers!

Pink from her eyeglasses to her puddle jumpers!

I especially love the heeled shoes!

Ummm . . . I’d say these guys are more like . . . oddly dressed campers.

Oh!  Guess what popped up in our campground in-box last week??

Mark Lippke sent a photo of his ‘catch-of-the-day’!!  Isn’t it a beauty?

And the Chicoine’s sent in this photo

from our Labor Day Seasonal Dinner.   Ed, who’d been seasonal with us for 17 years, has made 2009 his final year.  Some of us are taking his announcement better than others . . . I think Tami’s on her 10th box of tissues . . .nope . . . make that 11 boxes after posting this!

If anyone else out there would like to share a photo from their stay with us, please feel free to contact us through the website!

Labor Day Weekend

I really didn’t want Labor Day Weekend to come, ’cause I knew it was the last one with fun recreation stuff to do.  But you know what?

It was a blast!

Debbie and Bryant picked all their favorites like  teen ping pong, waterballoon slingshot, adult bingo, egg games, jewelry making, a seed spitting contest, and a labor day parade

These guys made soooo much noise with their pots and pans, and the shakers they made at arts and crafts!  It was awesome!   Their bikes looked really good too . . . all red, white and blue.

I decided I wanted to lead this rowdy, patriotic group around the campground.  Debbie said, “Go right ahead, Maxx.  Jump on the golf cart.”

So I did.

Bryant jogged right over.  “Debbie meant you could ride on the cart, Maxx.  Not drive it.”

“I’ve watched you,” I told him.  “I know where the gas pedal is . . . and the brake thingy.”

Bryant rolled his eyes.  “You need a drivers license Maxx.  That’s the rules.”

Rules, schmules.  Who makes them anyway?

There was a horseshoe tournament too, a scavenger hunt, hayride

and Kid’s Candy Bar Bingo!!

Bryant and Alex said there were 90

90!

candy bars!

Can you believe it?

The winner of the cover-all game walked away with 23 candy bars!  Hmmmm – I wonder  -   if I asked reeeeee-ally nice . . . . pretty please-ish . . .  I wonder if he’d share?

And that was just Saturday’s stuff.

On Sunday we had story time and a snack with yours truly

ceramics, pool relay races, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, waterballoon target practice, arts and crafts, capture the flag and an adult dart tournament.

Whew!!

It all came and went so fast.  One minute I was in front of the store with all my little camping buddies around me.  The next minute, I was trying to figure out where they all went!

I hope everyone is having a good school year so far . . . can’t wait to see you all again!  The campground’s open till Columbus Day, so if you get the hankering to camp one more time, to have s’mores over the campfire or kayak the lake while the trees burst with red, yellow and orange . . . come and see us!

Adventure Weekend

Hey everybody!!  Adventure weekend was loads of fun!

We had all our usual recreation, plllllll-uuuuus

we made bug catchers, went on a bug hunt and then raced them!

Can you see two daddy-long-legs and a beetle?  I don’t remember which bug won, but everyone had a blast!

We made some paper airplanes and helicopters too!  Then we had waterballoon target practice, you know, in case any   evil villains were lurking around the campground.

There were loads of inside party games, lasso training and tattoos for everyone

Except me, of course.  Tami still hasn’t found any tattoos that’ll stick to fur.

On Sunday, there was story time, bubble play, ceramics, Spy Training Camp, and then a Clued Treasure Hunt!  My camping buddies started out with one clue, that led to another, that led to another

until they had all nine!  The last clue told them to put the pieces together to find the hidden treasure spot, so they turned the clues over

and rearranged them until they saw

the climber!!

So they hurried to it and started digging until they found gold coins, necklaces and rings!!

Afterward there was ultimate frisbee and darts too.

Now Bryant and Debbie have their heads together, planning Labor Recreation.  They’ve taken all their favorite things and crammed them into one weekend.  Candy bar bingo, egg games, arts and crafts, ultimate frisbee, ping pong, adult bingo, a parade and much, much more!

You’ll just have to see it to believe it!

Medieval Weekend

Maxx here!

There was so much for my little campers to do over Medieval Weekend!  Charging and jousting

ferrier fetching (horseshoes),  bocci,volleyball, boat races,

princess and Robin Hood hat making

shield making, cannon ball target practice, a penny hunt, viking ships in arts and crafts, swordplay

a scavenger hunt, porridge eating

and hayrides

Halfway through Saturday, Bryant the Red Knight and his friend Dan the Blue Knight,  had a liiiiii=ttle argument.  You see, Bryant thought Cookie Dough ice cream was the best Ben and Jerry’s flavor ever made.  And Dan thought Cherry Garcia was  tastier.  There was only one way to solve the argument . . .

they dueled!  The crowd cheered them on . . . rooting for their favorite flavor. Um,  I mean, their favorite knight.

Cherry Garcia won the day, but everyone came together in the end.

It was awesome to see so many ladies-in-waiting and knights

Princesses

Robin Hoods and Maid Marian’s

I really, really think it makes the recreation that much more fun when my camping buddies dress up!

On Saturday night Bryant hosted Trash Bag theater.  Three teams came up with the most excellent plays ever!

There was Every Man in a Dress across the  Time Space Continuum

and The Mystery of the Golden Bone

the last was simply titled, Camping.

I had so much fun watching them do their excellent acting, that I got a little carried away and kind of . . .

sort of . . .

conquered Bryant.

Tami shook her head at me.  “Maaaaaaxx!  We can’t do Adventurer Weekend without Bryant.  Help him up!”

Sheesh.