Spring?

Well, maybe not, but it has certainly been warm this week! The temperatures have been up in the 20s and even up to 30 a few times this week! We're enjoying the beautiful weather! The only problem is that between the milder temperatures and the additional sunshine, the house gets downright HOT!!! We need to learn to scale back the fire in the wood stove. I did pretty well one day just tossing in a log and letting it almost burn out, but it takes more thought to operate that way. You need to be sure to get another log in there before it burns out completely.

The dogs are getting a little more rambunctious lately too. They can stay out for quite a while in the milder temperatures so Ellie is more inclined to RUN! Naughty little monkey! We've had to be more careful to tie her out when she goes out. We don't want her running through camp!

I finally feel like I'm caught up from my trip to Florida. It has taken a while and was complicated by a bug and mild cold but today I finally feel like I'm back to my new "normal" energy levels. Now when I get feeling cruddy I get impatient with myself, but I need to remember how blessed I am to have as much energy as I do these days! It wasn't long ago that "normal" was a lot more limited!

The boys had another volley ball game yesterday, this time against the parents. They were able to beat the adult team, but the games were all much closer than the last time. I was working so I was not able to go, but it sounds like they had a great time again. Rodney had hoped to play in that game, but yesterday morning he went down to check on the basement water tanks (we've started filling them from the spring) and the trap door fell right on his hand. Owwww! If you look back at the pictures I posted on January 12 you can see what the frame for the trap door looks like. Add the flooring on top of that and hinges on the short end next to the wall and you'll have a better idea of what it looks like. Now imagine that door opened all the way and dropping on your fingers from the full open position.

Robert Katsur is here again so he's working on all sorts of electrical issues. He re-did the wiring in the pelton wheel shed, adding a light to the interior and cleaning up what was in there, like the outlets and the inverter-to-house wiring. Since the old inverter has been relatively well behaved lately, he didn't install the new one yet. A lot of the work he did do was to ease the installation of the new one, so when they have time they will do that job as well. They tested the pump from the lake and could not get it working initially. Turned out it was no longer hooked up for some reason so they got that hooked up again, it works and the water looked pretty clear. Robert also wired the Taco (tay-co) pump with a timer to circulate the heated liquid which will add heat to the laundry room, pelton wheel house and the water storage room. AND (yeah, he was BUSY!) he also upgraded the ballasts in our kitchen lights so they won't suck so much power. We're still waiting for the replacement LED lights (the first ones were NOT as advertised!) and at this rate, I'm not sure they're even coming. We'll see. I'll give them another week, but the waiting is getting old.

Rodney took me out for a ride on the new snow mobile one day this week. What fun! You can get all sorts of spots that you can't get to on foot and when there's no ice! I should have brought my camera though! There's another GREAT view not far from our house! I'll have to go back with the camera and get a picture for ya'll! Apparently Doug Thiessen is working on a trail from the ranch portion of camp right past that spot that will hook into our ATV trail. That will allow him to take trail rides that are really on trails and can help keep the horses off the roads and away from so many vehicles. It will make for more pleasant rides for the campers. That also reminds me that I ought to devote a blog post to describing the different aspects of camp at some point!

Nate and Katie Regier left to go "outside" on Monday. They got into Pittsburgh shortly before it was shut down due to the big snow storm. Maggie had already gone "outside" a week or so earlier (while I was in Florida) to be with her dad who recently had a stroke possibly due to a heart problem. It is more than a little strange to have them gone! Rodney is a bit nervous about dealing with all the things that can go wrong at camp with both Nate AND Earl gone! Earl and Elaine will be back in about a week though, so we're looking forward to that! Hopefully the furnaces will all behave until then! Today the Alpine guy's septic has frozen so Rodney and Sergei will be working to thaw that out. Sergei is hungry for some gas for the borrowed snow machine so he jumped at the chance to help. ;) That's all for today! I'll try to get some pictures up again soon!