Day Nineteen – Evening’s Festivities

July 9, 2016 – Weather is always a factor

We are planning to spend part of today figuring out how we’re going to get all our goodies home!  I think I’m all right;  but Marilyn has her grandkids’ Christmas and birthday presents for the next couple of years to transport!!  We have bacon, fried eggs and toast for breakfast – just like in a restaurant! It’s raining and perfect weather to stay indoors, enjoy the view, and basically putz around!  Sometimes you just have to do that!

Marilyn spots a white dot across the lake.  Way, far across the lake.  It’s an eagle but you might just have to take my word for it!

Can you see him??

That's how far away he is!

We’re having popcorn and wine while we hang out and Sharon and Dana show up.  Sharon has two black-eyed susans in her hands for us, all wrapped up in damp paper so they stay fresh until she gets to The Camp.  She tells us that we will be having neighbors later in the afternoon as the daughter of one of their tenants will be staying with her husband and two little girls.  She also reminds us that there is a lobster feast at their old house, 714 as it’s called, and we can arrive at five, or earlier if we’d like!  Dana is making the lobsters and potato salad and lobster soup.  Poor Sharon is only allowed to make the salad and home-made blueberry pie!!

As we are preparing to leave for dinner, our neighbors show up, so we do the neighborly thing and say, “Hi,” before we leave.  We’re a tad late for dinner;  but that’s okay.  We’ve got a great excuse!

The first thing you see when you enter the house is the splendid, magnificent four-inch thick pine table that Dana made!  Truly awe-inspiring!  He has also made lots of other furnishings for the house.  A man of many talents! 

The soup consists of Half-n-Half, butter, a little seasoning, and lots of lobster chunks!  Rich!!  Delicious!! The salad is fresh and crisp with lettuce, tomato, green peppers and onions, with a choice of dressings.  The potato salad is perfect.  And then there are the lobsters - a whole one for each of us.  Good thing we’ve had a couple of practice runs before we make idiots of ourselves!! And there is wine, a nice chardonnay and water and tons of great conversation and laughter!  Dana is a non-stop story-teller with that dry Maine wit!  He taught six-grade for thirty-one years and also worked at the FDR bridge, doing immigration control during that same period.  And he had cattle and ran the apartment building and acquired 500-600 acres of land!  

I was so busy eating I didn't get a photo of the whole thing!

For dessert there is Sharon’s beautiful pie (I get to eat the filling) and the “kids” who are living in the house left us home-made Whoppie pies, too!

The hummingbirds and downy woodpeckers come to the feeder right outside the dining room window!

After dinner we go for a ride.  That sounds so innocent!  Dana has been making roads through some of his many acres and they are almost passable!  Good thing his Toyota four-door truck is built to take some abuse!  He and Sharon go out every day, sometimes twice a day, to see what there is to see, whether it’s wildlife or new wildflowers in bloom or blackberries just coming into season.   

You can make dolls out of hollyhocks!

Mean old Mr. Kadey! But the lock is a sham!

Dana and Sharon so thoroughly enjoy Nature and each other that it is a joy to be around them!

As we pass an open area, a young faun comes bounding toward us!  She looks like a giant rabbit the way she is hoping along!  My window doesn’t open and is tinted, so she’s kind of a challenge;  but worth it!!

The white pine is the state tree.

At one point we ford a stream with Sharon doing a Disney-like narration:  Look out, folks, we’re coming to that dangerous stream!  Do you think we’ll make it?  We’ll just have to try it and see!”  Dana has put rocks in the stream bed so make sure we don’t get stuck.  Every time he goes out to Camp he brings back another load of rocks.  You never know when you’re going to need more rocks!

Here's the stream!

Dana had two trail cameras and he's captured deer and moose and coyotes and other critters!

This is Mr. K, that Dana uses to make roads.

As the light wanes we come upon two more young deer!  They don’t even seem to care that the truck is there!

It's pretty darn dark out there!

Eventually we wind up back at 714;  it’s nearly nine o’clock and past their bedtime!  We say our thank yous and good nights and head home and to bed.  It’s too dark to do anything else, anyway, and the truck trip has been pretty exciting and exhausting!  We’ll see what tomorrow brings!