Don't Go Home And Leave Fires Unattended!

We had the gathering of the Breakfast Cereal Club in Anika's trailer on this beautiful, sunny, morning. We were all lazy and in our pajamas and loving it! 

The very first thing on my list of things to do today was to go and search for the white squirrel. I went for a walk by myself and started to scan all the trees in the area to see if I could see it. I didn't, but I did see a yellow bellied sap sucker pecking away at his breakfast in a near by pine tree. 

Also in the trees was a yellow and black striped caterpillar. But still no white squirrel. 

The sunshine dappled the ground and a Northern Pearly-Eye butterfly flitted around in the warming rays. 

I often find that if I sit quietly in empty campsites and just wait patiently, the wildlife comes to me. At the end of one of the roads was the group campsite. It was empty all season due to the Covid-19 virus. I figured what better place to sit in silence for awhile and see what would come. Unfortunately, it was a futile effort. Not only did I not see the white squirrel, but I didn't see much of anything. Even the birds and chipmunks weren't interested in hanging out here. All I saw was a little brown Crossline Skipper butterfly. 

Eventually I gave up and made my way back to the campsite to sit with the girls and and talk for awhile. We noticed that there were a lot of chipmunks in the area this year. We had about 5 on our site chasing each other all over the place. We decided to name them. There was "Pokey" who had a spot on his back that we figured looked like he was poked with a charcoal stick (not for real, just the colouring of his fur). "Gumby" was named that just because we had to have a Gumby that went with Pokey (right?). Then there was "Stumpy" who had a short tail (looks like he got into a brawl with something). Next was "Gramps" whose fur was lighter in colour, like he was growing older and grey. And last was "New Guy" (seen in photo below) because, well, he was last to show up (hours after everyone else did). 

As we sat, a little inch worm kept following Julie. She would move and it would start moving along the edge of her chair in the direction she moved in. I think it liked her.

Later in the morning, Shelli asked if we could go and see if our log was still floating in the water down by the river. Our log is one that someone painted a picture of a tree on and we carved our group name into a few years ago. Every year it floats somewhere new in the park, but usually stays relatively close to the sites that we normally occupy. We sit on it and hang our feet into the water. This year, since we are on the Brumm side of the park, it meant that we would have to walk all the way over to the other side of the park to look for it. We didn't mind though. Anika suggested that it would be a good opportunity to scout out other sites that we might like on that side of the park for future gatherings. So we got off our lazy butts and put our chairs away and  went for a walk. I moved Julie's inchworm safely into a nearby tree before we left though. 

So there we were, just enjoying our walk and looking at the Grey Comma butterflies on the road when we encountered an empty campsite with a fire still going in the fireplace. When I say empty, I mean no tents, no human belongings. And when I say the fire was going I mean full on flames about 2 feet high and plenty of smoke. The campers had packed up and gone home and left a fire burning in the fire pit! We had no containers with us to put water in so I went to the nearby water tap and started to fill my hands with water in an attempt to put it out. This would have been a long process. Shelli suggested that we ask the people on the site next to this one for a container to put the water in to put the fire out. 

The people on the neighbouring site were a young couple with their 2 kids sitting down to lunch at a picnic table. When I asked if we could borrow a container for water to put the fire out next door they were very hesitant. The lady responded with "The park rangers were just at that site a few minutes ago and cleared the fire pit".  Clearly she didn't really want to do anything about it. I responded with "Maybe so, but the fire is still going. There are flames coming up". She begrudgingly got up and went to get a container and met us at the water tap. We filled it with water, but she would not let us bring it to the fire. She said that she would do it herself.  We were puzzled by her hesitation and the feeling that we got that we were bothering her with this situation. Afterwards we figured that maybe she was just living in fear of contracting Covid-19 from her encounter with us. At least we were hoping it was just that and not someone who didn't care if the park burned down. 

We left the lady to the task of putting out the fire and continued on our way. 
We had a choice in which way to go to get to the other side of the park. We could take the road all the way around which would be easier to walk but would take a lot longer to get there. Or, we could cut through the group site to one of the hiking trails which would be much faster but the terrain was not as good. We chose the hiking trail. Then, when we were half way down the trail, I remembered a short cut that I saw someone take a year or two previous. I told the girls that if we went down a really big hill that we would be right in front of the campsites that we were on last year and that it would cut about another 20 minutes or more off of our trek. When they saw the hill, they hesitate but in the end they opted to go down the very big, pretty steep hill to get there. 

It wasn't the steepness of the hill that had made them hesitate. It was because they weren't exactly wearing hiking shoes. They were wearing sandals and flip-flops. So, not only was it steep, but at any moment their foot wear could betray them and they could go rolling down the hill. ​Especially since the hill was covered in loose leaves and pine needles. 

But one by one, we all made it down the hill and we were now free to roam the other side of the park looking for our log and other future campsites. 

We walked by happy campers all following the camping rules: relax and unwind, drinking a cold one, napping, visiting with friends, making memories, and being grateful for the day. 

Eventually we spotted our log down by the shoreline. 

The painted tree was a little faded but still clearly seen (considering it had been there longer than our carving had been, it was holding up well). And our group name was still easily visible as well. It was too far out for us to go sit on. Maybe next year. 

We checked out the other sites and looked around. When we got to the end of the road that was closest to the Brumm side of the park, we discovered that there was a little path that led straight to the the  beach right by our campsite. We all had a good laugh at that. If we had known, then we wouldn't have had to climb down the very steep hill. Oh well, it was an adventure. 
So, when we got back, we grabbed our chairs and brought them down to the beach to sit and drink and put our feet in the water. 

Eventually it started to rain, so we left the beach and went back up to the campsite to get supper started. As we walked up the road I was still looking in the trees for the white squirrel. But I didn't see it. We did see a white lady bug when we got to the site though. I had to look this one up online when I got home. Apparently it's a "Fifteen-spotted Lady Bug". 

After supper it started to rain harder. So we moved into the dining tent that Anika and I had decorated in twinkle lights to give it a more cheery feel. 

We played board games for the rest of the evening. When it got late and we headed off to bed, we could hear thunder in the distance. We could be in for a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. At least we had pretty good weather all the rest of the day though. Hopefully we won't have to pack up in the rain tomorrow.