August 22, 2019

I started writing this on company time yesterday, but no one seemed to mind. Ever since the kids went back to school earlier this month, the campground has been slow and sometimes even boring, but I don’t mind a bit. I’m thinking that this is the calm before the storm.

Labor Day weekend is just 8 days away. I can’t believe another summer is almost over and that our time here at LBL is winding down. What an experience living in the woods has been, and I have the (chigger) scars to prove it! A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that I would learn to co-exist with skunks, but I have. I had to; the skunk population at Hillman Ferry Campground has taken off and they’re everywhere.

Though there had been occasional skunk-sightings here and there throughout the campground all season, they seem to have escalated this month. With no apparent fear of humans, skunks are regularly reported to wander up on campsites while campers are cooking or even just sitting outside. Indeed, just this morning I spotted two of them come close to the walkway to the dock where I usually await sunrise, and I didn’t flinch.

Another workamper here has been baiting and setting out skunk traps every day for a week, but so far has caught nothing (despite the bait being eaten.)

It’s kind of funny listening to him talk about riding around in his golf cart at night, scouting out the skunks’ dens (he knows exactly what campsites they’re nearest to), his trapping strategy, and what he was going to do with any he catches. He’s also mounted a one-man war against the squirrels, having ordered “The Squirrelinator” from Amazon, capable of capturing 25 squirrels in just hours. I just listen, knowing full well his efforts are not going to make the slightest dent in either the skunk or the squirrel population here; this campground is huge!

Something rather unanticipated happened in the weeks since I last wrote: we decided to put our house up for sale. Our daughter and grandkids are getting a place of their own, and renting our house out is not something we want to mess with. So, now comes the inevitable: having to get rid of all our “stuff.”

Kate moving into our house two years ago made it convenient to forget all about the stuff that we left behind when we moved into the RV, but now it looks like the day of reckoning has come. Since neither she nor I have any desire to orchestrate a yard sale, we’re enlisting the help of a woman in Hopkinsville whose business is tag sales, so she will be the one to deal with getting everything organized, as well as with all the hagglers. Our tag sale is tentatively set for October 18-19.

It would be easy to be overwhelmed with everything that we would like to have happen between now and our planned departure date of October 28th, so I’m just concentrating on whatever needs to happen ‘next.’ Things somehow seem to get done that way and I am beginning to see tinges of forward progress. Just recently I finished making the first pass through all our photos…what a job!

In actuality, there are many more days left before we head south for the winter—66 to be exact. That leaves a lot of time for things to happen, and with us, things tend to happen quickly. I have a feeling our journey is about to get very interesting.

Until next time!

Maria😃