Yes, I can....

Yes I can come back to life, I mean.  Yes, the campground is open for business for one final season and we're off to a running start!  Yes, the drought has broken with a cold Spring just full of rain (and so we're running way behind on the growing calendar.) Yes, the 3 cats plus Dakota are with me here on combat duty (lol!) living in our camper again to run the show.

Yes, the bird life is still astonishing here, including Sandhill Cranes living even closer than before (their habitat next door was clear-cut last summer and they are searching for and finding new nesting places.)  Yes, the fish survived the combination of the 3' drop in pond level with the 1+foot of ice on top, at least most of them did as there was no big carcass mess to greet us when the ice finally melted.

Yes, we already have campers staying here--truly wonderful, intrepid campers--willing to tough it out in freezing weather (which sounds kind of strange as it's mid May.)  Yes, I'm still making lots of things, both new things and revisiting older things to fill orders, which I'll bring back to my lovely neglected blog to give readers the inside scoop.

Yes, I've been trying a few new things including a brand new Pinterest account which is pretty darn fun, but I still feel kind of all thumbs with...(connect with me there if you share this obsession!  http://pinterest.com/willoaksstudio/), including my new "about" page on Etsy (which I plan to change and edit on a regular basis) https://www.etsy.com/shop/WillOaksStudio/about/ and the iPhone app "Tunein Radio" which I love when I'm out and about.

Yes, I adore my new place in town, and was totally shocked by how quickly the winter flew by as somehow, it did end up I spent much more time in the new studio than in getting my "whole place" together....oh well, next winter!

Yes, I did get my trusty old camera fixed (finally!) so I can use it as a portable device again, instead of only plugged into an outlet, as I limped through the past year...(apparently, rechargeable batteries do die over time but I cannot recall ever killing any before?  Thank goodness for Amazon shopping!)

And finally, yes, I am just beginning to write again and to find my voice again....it's a tad scary, but mostly, it feels good.  Hope to reconnect with old pals and find new ones here again in due time!  Thanks for dropping by!

Karen

A Week in the Life (& Tales to Tell....)

The WillOaks Campground has been building to a crescendo all May and we're smack dab in the middle of Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial start of Summer.  We're all filled up with happy campers here, in spite of the dodgy weather, and it's good to see all the campers ready to switch from swimming suits and shorts to jackets and hoodies because between heat, sun, rain, hail, and wind, we've had a little of everything over the past week.

When I'm into this mode, that is, the camper life mode here at WillOaks, I really do seem to notice nature with more detail than during "everyday life."  Last weekend we had a unique occurrence that seemed scary at first.  But on closer inspection, and after a few phone calls, the amazing phenomena made me very very happy:  A honey bee swarm passed through and chose to pause for the night on the southwest corner of the only building in this part of our acreage: the bath house.  It took awhile to realize that yes, it WAS just honey bees and not the dreaded wasps which are also all around in early abundance.   The bee "cluster" built slowly, bee by bee, over the whole afternoon until it was, by dusk, the seething mass that I captured in an iPhone photo here.

Problem was, in the bathhouse proper, a few bees wandered in through cracks in the window frames and so there were also a lot of worker bees flying around in the Men's Room.  Ah well, we closed it off and declared coed bathrooms for an evening.  Meanwhile, unwilling to kill a single honey bee, I worked the phones (in spite of the fact that it was Saturday night) and found a very helpful and knowledgeable beekeeper, Frank Reiss, who keeps bees in Genoa, Illinois a little ways southwest of here.  He helped us comprehend what we were seeing here, and gave us good information about what it all meant and what would probably happen next.

Frank predicted that 1.)  the bees would not be aggressive because they were swarming which means they are on the move to find a new home, but were NOT defending a home just then, 2.)  were focused on protecting the queen in their midst and were just resting for the night and 3.) would probably be moving on at daylight the next morning, as they continued their hunt for a new hive.  It all came true and in retrospect, this was actually thrilling to me because I had read about "bee swarms" but have never witnessed one and also because I've noticed the general demise and even absence of honey bees around here the past couple of years (speaking as a gardener) and to see a healthy population of them, even if it may have been a relatively small one, was a very hopeful sign.

It's a double!

 

Speaking of hopeful signs, I'll conclude my nature post with a series of photos made by a friend, Teri Vandenboom, who frequents the campground, typically pointing her camera at almost everything.  And it's another special natural occurrence:  a spectacular double rainbow, that faded to a brilliant single rainbow, all thanks to that special convergence of sunlight and rain--a prism, to the nth degree.  The visions that myths are made of....now about that pot of gold?  I hope the bees found their new home somewhere nearby and that the pot of gold is a brand new hive chock full of healthy bees and honey, all ready to keep our local ecosystem hale and hearty!

We'll conclude our WillOaks Campground recap with a new image for the "Camping Cats" file.  In this chapter, Purrmeister reenacts that line from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, where the sheepdog is referred to as an "unmade bed."  Uh huh, that unruly mass of fur? It's one of our local unmade beds, I mean, one of our camping cats.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend, and do remember our fallen heroes who defend America and all her highest ideals.  Happy Memorial Day!

Camping Cats: Adjustments

 Poor Mom--We all have to eat up on the counter so Dakota doesn't butt in and hog all our wet food.  It's a bit chaotic until we each get our faces into our own bowls but eventually, everyone is happy.  We make excellent use of a small space....

Purrmeister has taken over each and every corner here in the camper at one time or another. 

I caught him on the bed here last night and just died laughing.  He's grown to be so flat that laying on his back has become quite normal for him.  This is an exquisite example of "letting it all hang out."

The new challenge is I fear they are sort of bored since I'm away working so much.  So the hunt is on to find new toys and entertainment including stapling carpeting to choice corners or they will tear the place apart very soon.