Joker is a bit of a self-professed humbug when it comes to Christmas.  In many ways I can understand it.  He sees it as a season of excess where people most often look past what Christmas is really all about. 

On the other hand, I see it as a celebration!  A celebration of Jesus’s birth and the beginning of new life for us all.  And I would decorate whether I was the only one in the house or not… lights outside and small trees inside.

There were no decorations last year for our first Christmas together.  We hadn’t been at the house since October and our Christmas was spent on the road in an impromptu trip to surprise the D’s that day.  We spent the day with family, sharing of ourselves… just as it should be.

As I was going through things in preparation for selling the house and living out of the camper fulltime, I packed away the things that had been gathered throughout the years to put into storage for Amy.  The only other things I kept were a very small lit tree and two wreaths, thinking that perhaps I could “sneak” some small things in without objection.   The clear rope lights that already line our site would do for the outside along with the wreaths on the door.  And the small tree decorated with birds and gold bells would fit perfectly in the small space of our home.

I so wanted to add two small lit deer outside in between the large trees by the road, but I was certain that would go over like a lead balloon!

So imagine my surprise in the middle of Walmart when I heard my husband talk about putting lights around the camper windows.  Broaching the subject of the deer met no objection.  And then I heard him say that a small lit tree would look good out there with them too.

Who stole my husband??? 

But the smile on the face of the man standing next to me told me exactly who he was.  Nobody had spirited him off in a flying saucer nor did he get lost in the hardware department.  He was standing right in front of me, realizing that it had become a celebration for him too.

There will be no gifts again this year as we promised each other.  There WILL be a large donation to the Food Bank so that others can be helped just as we needed the help not that long ago.

And there will be lights… reminding me daily of the True Light of the World!

So I was a bit surprised 28 years ago at my first reaction to the news that I would be going into the hospital to have my baby THAT VERY DAY…. Friday November 13th. After a half-hearted unsuccessful attempt to convince the doctor to induce labor the next day, I went home to get my bag and left to get down to the business of bringing a much-awaited life into this world. Amy was meant to be born on that day, no two ways about it! She’d hung out an additional month past her expected arrival date, marking the days with hearty kicks and stretches. Friday the 13th was obviously meant to be her day!

Rather than being an unlucky day, Friday the 13th is one of the most blessed days of my life! For on that day God chose to bless me with a baby girl who has grown into one of the most beautiful young women I know. Strong, beautiful in body and spirit, courageous, spirited, funny, smart… she constantly amazes me each day as she makes her way in this world we live in. Mere words are not enough. I am so very proud to be her mother!

So Amy… this one is in celebration of YOU!

Or you can see it here

Happy Birthday baby girl!

When Joker and I came to Hazlet State Park for the first time last February, we delighted in the pheasants that wandered through the campground, finding their nesting places, and sitting at night by the fire listening to them call each other through the fields across from us. It was a rare day when we didn’t look out the window to see brightly colored heads bobbing through the brush. These were the ones who somehow managed to survive the hunting season without capture. Their beauty and serenity captivated me, each one becoming familiar to me in some way whether it be their broken tail or simply their personality.

Always curious, I was delighted when I was told I could tag along this early morning to help release the pheasants that are brought in for the controlled pheasant hunt at the state park of which today is opening day. Joker thought I was a little nuts for getting up at 4:30 to ride along, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to experience something I never had and may never again.

And as I looked at the crates of pheasant tucked into the bed of the truck, I wondered how many of them would make it past the hunters to go through winter at the campground with us.

Nothing prepared me for the gloriousness of those releases. Through ten dropoffs, I stood watching in awe as the pheasant wriggled out of the crates and flew into the air without a backward glance. Their cries filled the morning air as the sun rose over the fields and they soared ever higher. Some needed a little nudge out of the crates, sitting on the ground for a few seconds as if to get their bearings before flying to freedom. But fly into the fields they did!

With the last drop made, we headed back to the site office. The place that an hour before was quiet when we headed out was now ablaze with orange. Orange hats, orange vests, orange jackets. Even a few orange bandanas around the necks of the dogs who were eagerly prancing and waiting to be released to do their work of beating the brush. The roads are lined with trucks and the air is now filled with the sound of the occassional gunshot and a question in my mind of “did they get it or not?”

I understand the beauty of the hunt… I have hunted and will again. The beauty of being in the woods or fields and the challenge of the hunt sometimes defies words. How lucky I was this morning to experience the other side of that beauty up close and personal in a way that few people get to experience.

Until now, I’ve lived all my life in cities. Nothing huge mind you, but cities of considerable size enough to have a gas station on every corner with a strip shopping mall sandwiched in between. Places where you often didn’t know who your neighbors were and where small kindnesses from people you didn’t know were few and far between. Where people often didn’t recognize your face even though you’d seen them a million times, much less know your name. And where the air was palpable with a buzz of “busyness” in all the people and the traffic.

When Joker and I decided to “live the dream” a little earlier than retirement and pull our stakes out of the city, we landed here at Carlyle Lake in the country. The town of Carlyle is 5 miles away. There is a real downtown with real stores that you really go to buy things at. There is a postmaster who knows who you are before you hit the door because he saw your truck pull up. There’s a butcher who offers to cut you a piece of meat specially if you don’t see a cut you like. There are no Great Clips or other hair chains, but there IS a true barber shop on Main Street complete with barber pole. The clerks in the stores know you by name. If you don’t find what you need in Carlyle, you go to another little town (most of which are only 20 minutes away at the most) where it’s the same thing all over again. When you go to Rural King, the clerk asks if you still love your bomber hat and hate the coveralls. Fast food is limited… “mom and pop” restaurants abound where they know you by name and ask you if you want the usual. Want an old-fashioned variety store? Just half hour down the road as the crow flies. No matter where you go there is always a smile, always a wave, always a hello.

The only buzz you might feel is the whisper of a bee against your ear.

As usual on a Tuesday morning, I loaded the truck up with the laundry and headed to Breese about 15 miles away to the laundromat. As I was folding towels, the owner stuck his head in the door and said one of my tires was flatter than a pancake and offered to call the town service station if I’d like so that they could fix it while I was finishing up my laundry. Not 5 minutes later they were there… airing the tire enough to get it to the station, telling me they’d have it fixed and back before I was done folding sheets. True to their word for in a half hour I was loaded and heading back for home. My thanks for going above and beyond what I supposed to be the norm was waved off. “That’s just how we do things around here Miss.”

Small town values… that’s what I was raised up with even in a bigger city. That’s what I’m living in the here and now.

It’s so nice to know they’re not dead.

The morning starts as it always does. I sit at the kitchen table sipping coffee before I brave the chill air and let the dogs outside. Harley is busy getting out every toy he owns and strewing them over the floor, going back and forth bestowing attention on each one, coming over to drop one in my lap on occasion in hopes that I’ll toss it for him. Laddie is still laying in his customary place by the door, looking up at me with love as I pass but not moving as he usually does to follow me around the camper as I wake up. His hips must hurt. In a moment of feeling like a pup again last night, he went to fetch a toy I tossed. The strength in his legs left him on the turnaround in a pile on the floor. With back legs trembling as he struggled to get upright, he gave up the game to go lay down again. It’s getting harder and harder for him to move as he wishes he could and as he remembers he could. There are days when he moves with fluid grace as if he were a puppy. There are days when his movements become that of an old man and I am reminded that our days together become shorter every day.

All of my animals have held a special place in my heart but none quite like Laddie, my 15 year old Sheltie with the liquid brown eyes. He and I met 13 years ago at a PetSmart during a rescue adoption event…and I fell in love. It wasn’t meant to be that he would come home with me that day however, because he had already been adopted. Two weeks later when I went back to the store, his picture remained on the poster of available dogs. So on a whim I called to find out if it was an outdated poster or if he was still available. I was told that he’d just been returned from his last adopted family and they were going to be quite particular about his next placement, putting him with someone who truly understood Shelties.

Oh… you mean the barking and the herding and the hair??? After all, I’d grown up with Shelties and knew full well what I was getting into. His first three owners didn’t like the barking (resulting in one of them having him surgically debarked as a puppy and leaving him with a squeaky little bark), nor did they like the amount of hair that he generated much less the paths he ran herding circles in in their yards. Classic cases of people getting dogs because they were cute and not understanding the breed.

2 hours later he was a permanent part of my life. And he has remained steadfastly by my side through all that life has thrown at me… the moves, the divorce, the work life that ate most of my time, the laughter and the tears… always stopping to rest his head on my leg and looking up at me with those warm coffee colored eyes.   Shortly after moving to Illinois, he was stolen from my yard only to find his way home 3 weeks later in some of the worst snow of the year. No matter what, we were meant to be together.

As precocious and funny as Harley is, it is Laddie that has truly become the love of the campground and the campers who come through here. Kids and adults alike come by to say hello to “the dog who can’t bark real loud”. He basks in the attention, starting up with his squeaky bark when the petting ends. He’s turned into quite the country dog, laying in the grass alongside the camper regally surveying the acreage and the wildlife around him… looking much like a regal prince. He delights in the treats that Joker gives him at night, often getting so excited that he’ll offer both paws one after the other when told to shake hands for his treat. So far he is managing the three steps into the camper well, though I know one day it will be a struggle.

His legs may falter at times but his love never has!

Just as my love for him never has either.

I think my most favorite time of the day is early morning… the time when I sit here at the table and gaze out the window as the day is dawning, thinking and writing and sipping coffee before I let the dogs outside.

And I marvel!

The view is dramatically different from what it was a few weeks ago.  The ground is carpeted with a thick layer of leaves in a multitude of colors that crunch loudly underfoot in the crisp fall air.  The quiet is peppered with the sounds of acorns falling on the asphalt as if it were hail, only to be replaced by the sounds of the squirrels scurrying onto my table outside hiding those precious nuts in my plant dish.  There are no deer right now (they’re here at night) but there are plenty of fuzzy squirrel butts scampering over the leaves and through the trees.  The leaves that still remain on the trees blow back and forth in the early morning breeze.  And I can see the lake from my window for the first time in months, sun glinting off the water with no campers blocking my view.  I can count the number of campers in the park right now on one hand. 

Peace… serenity… calm.

If anyone says God’s hand isn’t in all this glory, they are dead wrong!

The Labor Day weekend is usually the last hurrah of the camping season, full of families who are finishing out the summer with one last camping trip on a three day weekend. Now the campground is sparsely scattered with campers throughout the week… mostly couples who are either passing through or who simply want a few days of solitude and quiet around the campfire in the crisp cool fall air.

I was told that there would only be one other weekend that would be fairly busy… the weekend before Halloween when a lot of campers would come out as they traditionally have in groups to have an impromptu celebration. So since I knew it would be a somewhat festive weekend with more kids here than the usual fall weekend would usually see, I made plans for a few decorations around the campsite and an impromptu pumpkin painting contest for the kids who would be here. I spent the week ringing the site with ghosts on stakes and concocting a lighted spiderweb to string between the large trees in front of the camper. I readied the paints and the pumpkins I had available for the artistic endeavors of Saturday, thinking back over the years when Amy and I would sit and paint pumpkins together at our kitchen table and make final plans for her costume.

I was ready…. I was prepared…. NOT!!!

By Wednesday it was becoming apparent that this was not just going to be a busy weekend… this was going to be the busiest weekend we’ve had, topping every summer holiday weekend. The campers pulled in non-stop on Wednesday, continued pouring in on Thursday in the pouring rain, and by late afternoon on Friday we were full. No room… not one space left! I battled writers cramp while writing ticket after endless ticket. I told parents about the pumpkin painting contest, warning them that since there were only 20 pumpkins available they might want to bring their own if they didn’t want to take the chance of there not being one when they got here. I watched campers set up their Halloween decorations before they even set the camper. I gave out balloons to hang on posts so that the kids would know who was open to trick or treating on Saturday night. I ran out of balloons to give to campers to hang on their posts.

This was not going to be a busy weekend… this was turning out to be HUGE!

After 8 hours straight of writing out permits on Friday, I wandered around the end of the camper that provides an overall view of the campground and my jaw dropped. Campers had not just decorated their sites… they had created masterpieces of light and sound and sight that resembled a carnival midway in preparation for the trick or treating Saturday night. I was speechless as were many of the campers who happened in.

Saturday dawned sunny and cold. The morning was spent getting tables ready for painting and the small prizes put together for the “winners”, knowing full well that 20 pumpkins were going to go fast and hoping the paint and varnish would hold out. And coming to grips with the fact that we could only go as far as the supplies allowed. The whole point was for the kids to have fun.

And they did! All 36 of them that showed up from the ages of 3 to 12, some taking pumpkins that were provided but most bringing their own. The next hour and a half was spent watching bright shiny faces slathering paint on pumpkins in all manner of design… some discernable and some not. There were 10 year olds who agonized over the next color to place on their creation and 3 year olds who were happily slapping paint on in random order just like the bigger kids. And there were smiles and laughter… what it was all about.

The parents that came with them? WOW! They pitched right in helping me write names and site numbers on the bottoms of pumpkins, opening jars of paint. helping mop up spilled paint and smiling bigger than the kids were if that is possible. More than a few said “You ARE doing this again next year aren’t you?” Well of course! A bit more finetuned perhaps, but that is a definite!

It was for the kids… but it wound up touching the parents as well.

Joker, who had claimed he was staying away from it all as much as possible, was the big surprise of the day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him watching while I was busy with the kids, coming over after the last one had left to say “Real good job mama… I’m making a quick run to Walmart.”

An hour later I had finished the last of his clown makeup, helped him put on the suit and rainbow wig and watched him ride off on his motor scooter, laughing and joking and putting smiles on the faces of children and adults alike. He had the time of his life! As I did watching him.

At 5 the awards were given and the extravaganza began! The sky over the campground was filled with light and the sounds of children. There were arches of orange lights, graveyards with spooky sounds and fog machines rolling, Halloween spookhouses, hanging ghosts and ghouls, bouncy bins in the shapes of ghosts and pumpkins, a 10 foot tall bowling pin walking the campground with a Spongebob Squarepants, a pirate urging the pickup truck he was riding in the back of to “Go faster matey”, not to mention a certain motorscooter riding clown who was in his glory at our site. There were spooky costumes and cute costumes and more Hannah Montanas than I could count. So many kids that I ran out of candy (4 big bags worth).

By 9 the campground was quieter than I’ve heard it all summer… kids tucked around the campfires digging through their candy bags, giving all the adults time to sit and breathe.

As we sat around the campfire with friends who had joined us for the weekend, the man who had “pooh-poohed” doing much for the weekend gave me a kiss… rubbing some of his leftover clown makeup on my nose and said… “Just wait till next year!”

I can’t wait!

There are so many things to do over the next few days to get ready for the onslaught of campers who will be joining us at the campground for the traditional “Halloween weekend” albeit a week early. There’s a lighted spiderweb to concoct, bats to string with fishing line, certificates to print, prizes to prepare, and pumpkins and supplies to be gathered for the big pumpkin painting contest. And I had errands to run in town before all that work began.

So I decided to start my day with a walk to the lake in the crisp cool fall air. The only sounds in the air were the leaves crunching and rustling under my feet as I walked, an owl in a faroff tree who was welcoming the morning as the skies lightened, the sound of squirrels chattering as they raced among the trees and the sound of the water coming in against the rocks on the banks of the lake. Every sound seemed amplified in the sharpness of the air. Glad I wore a jacket, I sat on the bank for awhile before turning around to head back to the camper and into town on the first leg of the day’s “to do” list.

The day continued with weather as beautiful as it began. The sun warmed the air enough to make me ditch the flannel shirt I wore over my tank top as I worked outside. Harley was actually behaving himself and not launching himself into a howling fit everytime I walked out of his sight. Several campers whom I hadn’t seen for several months stopped to say hello and chat for awhile.

Idyllic, right? Yes but for one small thing.

Or should I say small things numbering in the thousands!

Ladybugs! A literal infestation of ladybugs invaded the area, peppering the camper with their bodies, coming in the house before I could slam the door shut on them. In my hair, in my eyes, in my shirt, crawling in my coffee. And I would not be wrong if I said they numbered in the thousands.

Not the “normal” ladybug that we are all used to during lazy summer days. These are the kind that flee the soybean fields when harvest begins, having been introduced to the fields to help protect the crops only to find themselves needing a new place to land when the cutting begins… and FAST! So they flocked here today, working into every nook and cranny they could in an effort to come inside. Glancing at the door that has not been opened for the last two weeks, I saw nothing but ladybugs on the inside of the door prevented from coming in further only by the screen door. They came in on my clothes and they crawled through the crack in the door. They fell off the ceiling onto the table and they stunk when I crunched them. And if I should find one on my arm? They bit!

I began to feel a bit like I was living a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” only with a different cast of characters. The little bugs that I always thought were so gently and cute seem to have turned into killers today!

Why do I get the feeling that before I step out of the door tomorrow that I’ll be peering anxiously outside to see what’s out there?

Joker and I took off yesterday to do a few chores.  Heat tape for the water lines, some insulation stripping for the doors and checking on some insulated coveralls for him for when he needs to be out this winter doing stuff outside.  So like all good country livin folk, we head for… Rural King!

Let me tell ya… I LOVE this place!  I could wander for hours through the aisles, crammed with things that meet both the domestic side of me as well as the mechanical/outdoor girl I’ve become over the years.  I can bounce between the housewares and the hunting gear and be totally content.

Off we go in separate ways… only to have Joker find me trying on bomber caps and thinking of Elmer Fudd but my goodness those things are warm and soft and furry and aren’t they so ugly they’re neato???  Once he quit laughing, he threw it in the cart for me, admitting that it WILL keep me warm this winter. 

A far cry from the dressier winter hats I used to have for my winter coat… but oh I love this hat!

One quick left turn and we find ourselves at the coveralls… a long huge wall filled with golden brown, stiff as a board, corduroy collared coveralls that can stand up in a corner by themselves without a body in them.

And once he has selected the appropriate size and length for him, he turns to me and says… “Now we need to find one for YOU.”  Protesting the fact that these things are NOT cut for women, I prove the fact by trying one on.  With the waist where it’s supposed to be and fitting quite well, the top of this thing is another matter.  I look like the StaPuff marshmallow man!  I could walk into the grocery store and stuff ten 20 pound turkeys into this thing and STILL have room.

“See?  It doesn’t fit right”  I said with a smug grin as I danced from one foot to the other trying to get them off and keep my balance.  “This is exactly why I bought women’s cut camo for hunting and they don’t make these for women.”

I’m here to tell you that it didn’t work… “Try the bibs then cuz you ARE going to get some and be warm this winter.”

So I did the hop and dance number again trying on the bibs with a small pout…. which fit.  Which went in the cart… I had no choice… at least they fit!

My hat will not match my coveralls but at least I’ll be warm.

Driving back through the country, I thought about how life has changed… my winterwear is now ‘chic mismatched durable” rather than “chic”  I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

And then I thought about how life’s gone full circle.  I remember the same hop and dance number performed with my mom’s help as she bundled my brother and I into snowsuits and boots and hats and mittens for what invariably would be a two minute romp in the snow before we’d have to come in to go to the bathroom… only to repeat the hop and dance process again.

Why do I get the feeling that that’s gonna happen again?  Only this time without Mom’s help.

I wish I knew where the summer went. It seems like only yesterday when the other campground hosts started trickling in to help for the summer… now they’re making plans to leave over the next few weeks until  spring, leaving Joker and I to deal with the campers who decide to join us in the fall and winter months ahead.

In many ways the “lazy days of summer” were nothing of the sort for us. They were days filled with worry and the business of simply holding on with fingertips and lots of prayer. Days of agonizing over what goes and what stays while I worked on getting the house sold and of moving it all to it’s respective places. Yet interspersed through it all were the wonders of the summer season… the hummingbirds who came to make their home at our site… new friends made and older friendships deepened… watching the cornfields grow from stubby stalks to tall graceful forests of green… walking through fields of wildflowers bursting into bloom sporadically just when I thought they’d bloomed out…spying the young deer who’d been born and marvelling at how big they’d grown in just a few months. Bits of “lazy” entwined with the constant commotion that marked the summer and our lives.

A few weeks ago, fall began to make it’s coming presence known. Labor Day weekend saw the last of the camping “hordes”. The weekends since are still busy but the campers coming in are the ones who are serious about their camping, preferring to spend their time quietly enjoying the wonders of the coming fall and not trying to pack it all into a crazy summer weekend. Joker and I spent a weekend skirting the camper with insulation board to help keep us a bit warmer this winter, occassionally interrupted by those who came by to watch and say “You really ARE serious about staying here aren’t you?” I’ve watched the hummingbirds who made their home here leave for the winter only to be surprised after a few days with none at the one feeder that still remains with the presence of another group on the way down the migration trail, staying for a day or so to refuel and then go on their way. The cornfields have gone from thick lush green forests to mottled green/brown to the crispy ready to harvest brown, the soybean fields following suit. Fall life in a small country town means pumpkins and fall festivals and quilt raffles and hunters in camo gathered in the early morning at Hardee’s. There’s a collective “slowing down”… a sense of life coming back to a more normal pace after the hubbub of summer in a lake town.

I’m feeling it too! With everything going on, I missed out on a lot of summer.

I don’t plan on missing a minute of this glorious Fall!!!