Mowning alweady! How time fwies!
We learned this past weekend on our trip to St. Croix State Park about the dangers of going camping in a drive-up site, by ourselves, for the first time in two years. When you go with other people, you can rely on them to have remembered the things you forgot, and when you backpack, you're paranoid about bringing every little thing you could possibly need. This time, however...well, the best one was when we were getting ready to put together our tin foil dinners on Friday night, chopping onions and whatnot, and then realized that we had forgotten...wait for it...the tin foil. For our tin foil dinners. Oy.
And it didn't stop there. We quickly discovered we had failed to bring:
--a flashlight
--a jackknife
--the long fire-lighter
--batteries for the tent fan
--trash bags
--newspaper to use as a firestarter
--probably some other stuff that I've now forgotten a second time
Yeah. It was quite embarrassing.
But somehow we muddled through, and the weekend was actually very lovely. We'd been a little apprehensive when we'd heard temps were supposed to be in the mid-90s, but somehow when you're out in it all day (and swimming in the river during the hottest part of the day) you don't notice it as much. Incidentally, I had never swam swum gone swimming in a river before, and it was kind of a treat--way better than swimming in a lake, for sure, because, well, moving water can't help but be more interesting. Plus less fish-nibbles and algae. We had a terrific canoe trip on Saturday morning, too, before it got too hot, and managed to see more wildlife than we usually do (including what may either have been three bald eagles and two does with their fawns, or else just one of each popping up downstream multiple times).
We also explored the park a little further than we'd done in previous visits, and discovered a fire tower that was built in the 30s (I think?) and that they now have open for people to climb, in clement weather. Something over a hundred stairs to climb, but the view was completely worth it. Don't know how or why I didn't inherit the vertigo that several other family members of mine seem to have, but I never have issues with that kind of thing, even with the wind blowing as it was that day.
Really great night for stars on Friday, with perfect, cool sleeping weather...and a little early morning thundershower on Sunday, just short and mild enough to wait out in the tent and doze through. (Not like last time, when our Sunday morning rain was enough of a deluge for us to just throw the soggy tent in the car and then go for a hike in the rain, since we were already soaked through.) We drove through a fairly impressive storm system on the way home-via-Mama Maria's-in-Hudson-to-use-Allen's-gift-card, too, and were glad we weren't the group of bikers huddled beneath the overpass.
So in spite of our spectacular forgetfulness, things worked out all right, and they lived happily ever after. And really appreciated hot showers and soft beds and movies on DVD and food not needing to be cooked over a fire, when they got home. And isn't that a big part of what camping's for?
Somebody did steal our little solar garden lights, though, while we were gone. That was a somewhat annoying discovery. I can't really imagine how they're going to use them, either, without the shepherd hooks they hang on, though Allen guesses that means the culprits were gravediggers.
In other news, our tomato plants are threatening to take over the neighborhood. No no--I'm serious. The weekend before Memorial Day, we planted two little modest tomato plants in our side yard, against the north-facing side of the house. One grape tomato plant, one Bushel Boy. We did plant them in a good peat moss/humus mix, and fertilized them when we planted them, but other than that we've done little other than water them. And then yesterday...Well, yesterday we were forced to turn our side yard into a grape tomato vineyard. It has been trailing everywhere for the past few weeks, all over the other tomato plant (which was planted what would normally be a perfectly safe distance away, and which, I should mention, is itself a rather, um, healthy size), all over itself, everywhere. Allen had already trussed it up a while back with twine tied to its tomato cage, but yesterday we pounded 17 wooden stakes into the ground to guide the crazy trailing vines. Today I decided to estimate just how many tomatoes we were going to get off the thing. My somewhat conservative estimate, based on the average number of blossoms/tomatolets per cluster times the number of clusters I could readily count, was 675. Yes. SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE GRAPE TOMATOES. FROM A SINGLE PLANT. I, uh, think I need to learn how to can, this year.
Finally, tonight we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. No spoilers here, I promise--but I will say I've learned that I know the books waaaaaaaaay too well to ever fully enjoy the movies on first viewing. I'll come to appreciate it more once we have it on DVD someday, I guess (because of course we'll end up buying it, or asking for it for Christmas, no matter how we feel about it now). I did like it, I think--it just takes a little, hmm. Tolerance.
Super fired up for Book 7 now, though. Holy cow.
Yipe, I need to be up and getting ready for work in four hours and I'm scarcely sleepy yet. Those movie concession cokes are like gallon jugs.
And it didn't stop there. We quickly discovered we had failed to bring:
--a flashlight
--a jackknife
--the long fire-lighter
--batteries for the tent fan
--trash bags
--newspaper to use as a firestarter
--probably some other stuff that I've now forgotten a second time
Yeah. It was quite embarrassing.
But somehow we muddled through, and the weekend was actually very lovely. We'd been a little apprehensive when we'd heard temps were supposed to be in the mid-90s, but somehow when you're out in it all day (and swimming in the river during the hottest part of the day) you don't notice it as much. Incidentally, I had never swam swum gone swimming in a river before, and it was kind of a treat--way better than swimming in a lake, for sure, because, well, moving water can't help but be more interesting. Plus less fish-nibbles and algae. We had a terrific canoe trip on Saturday morning, too, before it got too hot, and managed to see more wildlife than we usually do (including what may either have been three bald eagles and two does with their fawns, or else just one of each popping up downstream multiple times).
We also explored the park a little further than we'd done in previous visits, and discovered a fire tower that was built in the 30s (I think?) and that they now have open for people to climb, in clement weather. Something over a hundred stairs to climb, but the view was completely worth it. Don't know how or why I didn't inherit the vertigo that several other family members of mine seem to have, but I never have issues with that kind of thing, even with the wind blowing as it was that day.
Really great night for stars on Friday, with perfect, cool sleeping weather...and a little early morning thundershower on Sunday, just short and mild enough to wait out in the tent and doze through. (Not like last time, when our Sunday morning rain was enough of a deluge for us to just throw the soggy tent in the car and then go for a hike in the rain, since we were already soaked through.) We drove through a fairly impressive storm system on the way home-via-Mama Maria's-in-Hudson-to-use-Allen's-gift-card, too, and were glad we weren't the group of bikers huddled beneath the overpass.
So in spite of our spectacular forgetfulness, things worked out all right, and they lived happily ever after. And really appreciated hot showers and soft beds and movies on DVD and food not needing to be cooked over a fire, when they got home. And isn't that a big part of what camping's for?
Somebody did steal our little solar garden lights, though, while we were gone. That was a somewhat annoying discovery. I can't really imagine how they're going to use them, either, without the shepherd hooks they hang on, though Allen guesses that means the culprits were gravediggers.
In other news, our tomato plants are threatening to take over the neighborhood. No no--I'm serious. The weekend before Memorial Day, we planted two little modest tomato plants in our side yard, against the north-facing side of the house. One grape tomato plant, one Bushel Boy. We did plant them in a good peat moss/humus mix, and fertilized them when we planted them, but other than that we've done little other than water them. And then yesterday...Well, yesterday we were forced to turn our side yard into a grape tomato vineyard. It has been trailing everywhere for the past few weeks, all over the other tomato plant (which was planted what would normally be a perfectly safe distance away, and which, I should mention, is itself a rather, um, healthy size), all over itself, everywhere. Allen had already trussed it up a while back with twine tied to its tomato cage, but yesterday we pounded 17 wooden stakes into the ground to guide the crazy trailing vines. Today I decided to estimate just how many tomatoes we were going to get off the thing. My somewhat conservative estimate, based on the average number of blossoms/tomatolets per cluster times the number of clusters I could readily count, was 675. Yes. SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE GRAPE TOMATOES. FROM A SINGLE PLANT. I, uh, think I need to learn how to can, this year.
Finally, tonight we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. No spoilers here, I promise--but I will say I've learned that I know the books waaaaaaaaay too well to ever fully enjoy the movies on first viewing. I'll come to appreciate it more once we have it on DVD someday, I guess (because of course we'll end up buying it, or asking for it for Christmas, no matter how we feel about it now). I did like it, I think--it just takes a little, hmm. Tolerance.
Super fired up for Book 7 now, though. Holy cow.
Yipe, I need to be up and getting ready for work in four hours and I'm scarcely sleepy yet. Those movie concession cokes are like gallon jugs.