Feels Like Home!
I have been terrible about getting regular blogs published!
So again let me apologize for my tardiness, and I wish I could promise that I will do better, but that may or may not come to fruition as we move on.
It’s early May and we have settled back into site 217 at Lake Huron Resort (LHR), and it does feel like we are now home, and I guess after spending three of the last four summers here at this park it would be hard not to feel that way.
So let’s start with why are we back here?
Well actually we committed to returning to this year at LHR (Lake Huron Resort) last July. So, now you know that we can keep secrets, although some of our dearest friends did know our plans but they to had been sworn to secrecy as well. And while we are back to work at LHR we now are part of a team, as we share management duties with Lorne & Val and we have Mark to assist as well.
You see we have always loved being here at LHR, even through the ugliness of Covid era and then some verbal tirades of a few uncontrollable people because of whatever deamons they were dealing with. But it was just too much work for us on our own, even with the help of Don and Dale, our last year here, we were just worn out by the end of each season.
And we also wanted to see more of this big beautiful world, so the position we took in British Columbia on Vancouver Island was all part of the plan to fully explore that area of Canada. And that we did, and it was just unfortunate that the positions we took on the Island turned out to be so screwed up. We will leave that as enough being said, as much as it was not what we expected it was a learning experience, in a lot of different ways. So we return to LHR equipped with some new ideas on how to tackle some lingering issues and maybe some new processes to make some things easier.
We arrived on May 8th, a couple days ahead of our original scheduled arrival date of May 10th, and the plan was that May 12th would be our first day of work. But we just thought it would give us a couple of extra days to get our site set up and get settled in, we have only been gone from LHR a year but it seems like so much longer, and so many things have changed, so many new people, so many old friends, acquaintances and of course there are still some people that are not exactly overjoyed that we are back. And I’m thinking there was probably not a lot of park rule enforcement last year, and that always seemed to be the point of contiversory, when people were simply asked to abide by the same rules as everyone else and our expectations are that they would actually comply.
But it’s a whole new year and and we are about three weeks late to this party, so there will be a little catch up on our behalf, to get up to speed. We met Lorne & Val and enjoyed a couple of beverages around the fire pit on the evening we got here. We have met with many of the people in the park and been welcomed back many times over, of course there have been a few jabs about not being able to stay away, but I believe they are mostly in good fun. We had dinner with Rich & Bonnie and it was like catching up with dear friends, Miss Bonnie who is an excellent cook prepared a wonderful meal and after a couple of beverages we caught up on each others adventures. As we consider Rich & Bonnie true friends as much as our employer, we enjoy their company as well as their adventures, and it just reinforces that feeling of us being home.
The next question might be “How is the team thing working?”
And let’s be honest it could be too early to tell for sure, for it to work we all have to be on the same page, and working in the same direction. First impressions are good, just like us originally, Lorne & Val have never done this type of work commitment before and just like us they are now living the nomadic lifestyle, winter in the south and back to Canada in the summers. And some of their experiences the first few weeks bring back memories of our first couple of weeks and that feeling of “What the hell have we got ourselves into?“
Mark is the only return employee from last year and seems to be a hard working individual, but this will be a whole new working environment for him as well. But all in all with after the first three weeks now under our belt I’m feeling pretty good about our team as a whole, we have made it through the first long weekend with no major issues. The long weekend included a food vendor, karaoke, as well as the ever popular chocolate bar bingo.
Miss Laurie is back in her happy place, the gardens, working her magic on the beatification of the park, and we are also preparing the park for a wedding in September, so my task is to grow a beautiful lawn overlooking Lake Huron where the service will take place. There are enough of us on staff that the workload has been lighter with our next major project is getting the pool up and operational for fathers day, which happens in early June.
The day to day operations will soon fall into place, as we move past the twice a week lawn cutting of the spring time, along with the spring time planting and mulching which is consuming extra manpower right now. So as of now the last week of May I’m pleased with the way this team is working together.
We have not ventured far from the park as of yet, with our only excursion being to the Costco in Waterloo for supplies the first week after we got here. And it was just this last week of May that we ventured out for dinner at Sudir & Donna’s new home here in the Goderich area, oh we have been to Goderich multiple times for supplies but so far have just been just settling in to the park and our new role at the park. Since we have been here the fields to our east (directly behind our coach) have been tilled and planted with corn (cow corn as Miss Laurie calls it) and we are even seeing the corn sprouting already. We have had a number of campfires with Lorne & Val and Rich & Bonnie, heck we even had one on our site, Rich has been laid up for a week with pneumonia, but he seem to be working his way past that now.
Today is the thirty of May and we now have the pool up and circulating, because of multiple leaks in the solar heating system we have bypassed it this year so will rely on propane as our only heat source. And while that disappoints me, I do understand that a new solar heating system to replace the old system will be expensive and will take some serious research as there are a number of new more energy efficient systems coming onto the market.
I’m sitting in the Clam™ typing away on this blog, just having enjoyed lunch prepared by Miss Laurie, and Mister Sam is enjoying watching the birds from the comfort of Miss Laurie’s anti-gravity chair. Although he has made it to my lap for some emotional support now and then, as you may not be aware of how difficult birdwatching can be for Mister Sam. Today is one our days off this week, and I’m hoping to get the drone up for some photos this afternoon as well as a photo of our site this year.
The weather here in Ontario has been all over the map, with today being sunny and warm, but we had frost warnings just a few days ago. So in other words pretty normal for Ontario, maybe a little breezier than we remember but overall pretty much ok, although we were affected by the wildfire smoke from Alberta making some of the days seem overcast. Miss Laurie purchased some rhubarb from a roadside stand and has made the years first batch of rhubarb crisp which seemed to be a hit with everyone lucky enough to have got some, and I have actually purchased a rhubarb plant, that we will get planted for more future rhubarb crisp.
So here’s a thought about the new work team thing, I’m still in the Clam™ here typing away and I have been listening to the power washer and now the weed whacker on my day off, I never had that problem when I was the only worker … jus saying.
Below are a few shots around our site taken from the drone.
The last day of May and it has been an exceptionally warm day for this time of year, and we are celebrating Dale’s birthday today. It started off with him providing us with cream puffs (this has become a regular occurrence for the person celebrating their birthday to treat friends to cream puffs, you might think as I do that seems a little backwards) and we invited Dale & Fiona for a beverage around a fire this evening. We enjoyed multiple cocktails Miss Laurie made the now famous “Arizona Whiskey Sour” and Dale brought some “liquid yummies” (Dale’s term) during the evening and even topped it off with some Starlink satellites crossing the sky as captured below.
As May comes to a close, so does this blog, I have at least caught back up on current blogs but I still have a couple from our Mexico adventure to get published, but I’m working on it.
Three weeks till Summer!
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