Frontenac August 20-22

We had a third camping trip this year, and tried out a park we've never been to before.  Frontenac Provincial park.  It is a back country park only-where you can canoe or hike in to the sites.  Unfortunately all the sites are in clusters, so although the park was big enough, we were close to other people.  We camped at 4d, which was a short paddle from the access point.  When we launched, we had to wait for three guys that came with to small motorboats (small electric motors are allowed) fully loaded with gear, plus a canoes!  They towed a canoe just stuffed full!  They said we could take any gear they left behind-but we didn't have room for much either.  :p  All the sites come with tent pads premade-and they're pretty hard packed on dirt-and since there were no pines where we camped, it wasn't very comfy.  Can't pick grass, although you may stack up dead pine needles!  Our first night we had people right beside us (we were the end of a row of four sites, and could only see 4c directly, but could hear b, and maybe even a.  Not what we are used to, so I was very happy it was vacant on our second night.  We saw lots of wildlife this trip-including deer at twilight right from our site!  The second day Phil was out paddling with Nathan, Melanie and Matthew, and they saw a buck!  Plus they passed very close past turtles that were sunbathing!  I didn't pack our camera this trip :o  and I completely forgot flashlights!  Matthew had a little toy light (very tiny blue bulb) so the kids weren't terrified in their tent at night.  But finding the outhouse (a shared one with TP provided even!) in the dark was very difficult.  I managed it partly by sound (if you're rustling too much you're not on a path anymore, even if it's the wrong path) and partly by smell-once I got close!  :p 

First time this year we were allowed to have a campfire!!  The weather had been so dry earlier that there was a fire ban during both our other trips.  But this trip it had rained a lot for the three days before-but it was dry and sunny our whole last trip.  What a lovely way to end the year!

Summer slips past

 but Mom is not allowed to get by-

 unless she pay a toll

 then she can pass.

 Jennifer finds the flash a bit slow or bright,

 but my, isn't she cute when she's blinking!  (If I could catch a sneeze, that's even cuter!)

Melanie is busy in her room, surrounded by her brothers

 they are probably planning a game that involves lots of toys (and no cleanup if they can get away with it).

 Daniel stays to watch.  He usually plays along nicely with any new game for a while, and then once he's tired of it, wreaks havoc on the game.  Then a fight usually breaks out and we need

a funny clown!

 Haha!  I laughed very loudly when Matthew came upstairs from the playroom with his duplo squirt guns and told me "Look Mommy, I'm a funny clown!" 

Melanie designed his outfit, down to the mismatching shoes.  Why squirt guns?  Because that's what some people at camp did when they were being silly!

Dear Jennifer is such a sweet girl. 
Sometimes.
But
she is also a very demanding girl.  Today she climbed up onto this bucket in her room, yelled for help: "Uhhhh!" and since I didn't arrive in 30 seconds she started in to scream!

 "Mommy get me off this bucket now!"
She gets angry very quickly lately, and also, after not having screeched shrilly in a while, is back to the high pitched screaming again. 
We hadn't missed it. 
At all.
Bring earplugs if you come visit anytime soon.

Sometimes the playset gets neglected for weeks, and other times it looks well worth the effort of making it. Nathan and Matthew are being dogs, though they are distracted by Jennifer, curious to see how far she can make it up.  Melanie and Matthew are playing a version of house that involves a baby.  Melanie loves being a Mom in her games, and is very pleased to find that Daniel is very good at playing house, if it's just the two of them.

Jennifer wishes she could get up too!  And I am so very glad she can not.  I still remember Daniel falling off the top!

Sunday morning reading

Massassauga August 7-11

My fear of rattlesnakes, and my vivid memories of my fear last trip in Massassauga park when Philip told me about one shaking it's rattle at him when he startled it when he was collecting firewood, and all my phobias last trip made me hesitant to book this trip, but once again, against my better judgement, and according to my better half's better judgement, we booked a two night trip in Massassauga.  Then, after such a great experience at Bon Echo I even extended the trip to four nights, apparently completely forgetting which park I was booking at. 

To get in was a fairly lengthy paddle, which all but Jennifer enjoyed.  We also had a small portage (400m?) which was mandatory to get into the park from our access point.    We landed at site #7, and it was ideal for us.  Open enough to be sunny, giving Philip his much desired morning sunshine, a lovely view from the rocks, but also a nice play area defined by two hills, our camping stuff nestled at the bottom.  So, unless the kids were wandering through the bushes into the thicker woods in the direction of the thunder box, or heading far down the other "dead end path" we could see them all the time.  The kids were very good about taking company with them, and taking the company back too, even if it was slow Daniel. 

 Daniel spent the first while playing around the campsite.  New to us this year was the introduction of tiny kid backpacks filled with toys.  Toys for camping with!  They were thrilled with this!! 

Jennifer got grubby right away, and was very cheerful after her nap (tuckered out from her loud complaining in the canoe, and lulled to sleep by the waves) and she swas pleased to not go in the canoe again for a day and a half!

Melanie set out to domesticate our campsite, hanging up a clothesline.  After all, where would we hang our wet clothes to dry if it wasn't for her?   She also set up the sleeping bags, and did whatever arrangements were necessary for getting comfy that night.  She was not impressed to find out we had decided that Nathan Matthew and her were old enough to sleep in the small tent by themselves.  However, having a flashlight to themselves was an attractive feature that helped pacify her!

 Nathan wasn't real keen on this "kid tent" idea either.  Once we told him he could put an arm around Matthew, and an arm around Melanie, and look after them when they were worried, turn on the flashlight to show Melanie there wasn't anything scary, I guess he figured he would have to handle it and protect his sister and younger brother!  (After all, Mom and Dad would be right beside--our tent fly was touching his, so it would be okay, right?)

Matthew was very excited about this proposition of ours.  He said he was big enough.  Then he promptly picked up his gun and went to hunt for chipmunks and squirrels, to keep our food pack safe from these marauders.

By our second day, we found out that a tiny turtle was living right by our "boat launch".    We saw a frog too.

 Nathan caught a small trout fishing off the rock.  First fish caught by him, which is very exciting!  I do suspect he may have felt relieved when the trout rolled off the rock after Philip unhooked it, and could swim freely away into the deep water.

Melanie gave fishing a go too, after all, wasn't she with me when I caught our only fish last trip?  But the fish did not bite for her.  She caught a few rocks and weeds though, I believe.

Although the following picture is dark, you can see all the kids just keeping busy in their usual fashion, and enjoying the good outdoors.  Jennifer found the climb up the rocks quite challenging, and we always had to be near enough to hold on to her or bring her down if she did make it to the top-since the drop down the other side was very steep, and the water very very deep!

Daniel thought that chipmunk hunting was a great idea, and took it very seriously, as long as the chipmunk didn't get too close!

Having brave company when hunting makes it a lot more fun, and less scary too!

As soon as Jennifer got tired, she'd suddenly switched from being very excited, happy and content to being very clingy and cranky.  After a cuddle time, she was happy to lay down for a long comfy nap in the tent, and would be much more cheerful again when she got up.

Day 3 was time to head out to our second and last site, and since I'd forgotten all year so far, I quickly squeezed in a loaded canoe picture.  Our canoe was very loaded indeed!  We booked from Swift canoes this trip, knowing that if we asked for a 17 foot Temagami with an extra seat we would actually get it when we came.  (Other trip rentals from other companies have disappointed us when we've showed up for our longer canoe, and we've had to fit (thankfully!) into the regular 16 foot one that was available.

We had trouble steering this longer canoe, and could really feel wake from boats when we passed through any motorboat territory.  After a bit of meandering, we did learn to steer it-only it required both of us actively steering, when usually we have left the back paddler as the steersman, and the front as an extra engine (unless caught in big waves!).  Maybe next trip we will try two canoes, though Nathan and Melanie will not likely have stamina or strength to help-so we'd have to avoid big lakes and windy places so we wouldn't get caught by surprise wind and waves.

To get to our next site, we had a portage, but it was less than 200m, so very manageable, and the three older kids ran back and forth a few times getting our miscellaneous little stuff-I didn't bother trying to cram it all into our packs.  After all, we had a long paddle to get here, and another long paddle to go, so a great excuse to stretch their legs!

 Daniel and Jennifer preferred to keep me company.  Or I preferred to keep them company.

 Portages are great times to catch up on snacking!

 Matthew decided to join in the snacking after his last trip.  He was so eager to help out carrying stuff!

(Just one paddle Nathan?  I'm sure you could've taken more than that in one trip!)

(I guess Melanie didn't do a whole lot either.  To be fair, it was all that was left besides the pack which was too heavy for them to manage, even between the two of them.)

 We still haven't figured out what type of flower this is.  We haven't tried very hard either though.  Very pretty, and stood out nicely amidst the green.  Despite being bright, though, I missed it until Philip pointed it out, since there were blackberry bushes, and I only had eyes for ripe blackberries!

After more paddling, which involved a beautiful long narrow paddle down a marshy creek pathway, and then past a bunch of cottages (some including all the bells and whistles like satellite TV) and  we ended up at comparatively primitive site 610, not quite nestled in Gooseneck Bay, but right before it.  Right after we started unloading our trusty canoe, the threatening sky began a drizzle.  It drizzled for some time, and we had the tents and a tarp set up long before it began to rain more seriously.

We found this site a little less ideal for a big group of little kids-but I suspect that if it was really sunny, we may have noticed other attributes to the site.

We spent a lot of time under the tarp.  Day number 4 was rainy and wet.  The rain let up for a while in the morning, so we packed up our entire crew into the canoe and checked out Gooseneck Bay.  It was pretty weedy in places, but very secluded looking.  Beautiful, even in cloudy dreary looking weather.  We were the only campers in the 600 range of sites.  That was a bonus!  But we could hear motorboats occasionally off in the distance, since after all, we weren't far from a public area that was mixed in with Massassauga park. 

Seven people under a small tarp can get trying if it's drizzling into the afternoon!

 Camping is tiring in the rain.

 Jennifer was affected by the atmosphere as well.

I suspect that if I packed an extra set of clothes for all the kids, I'd have been more relaxed in the rainy weather.  And if I was more relaxed, and let them get a bit wet now and then, all the kids would been more cheerful too!

The rain let up again late afternoon, and the kids tried fishing again.  Nathan caught another small trout!  Then after dinner, the the clouds let down a much heavier rain, and we ended up going to bed a bit earlier than usual, partly just to keep dry.  After all, Mommy was worrying about the fact that she had only one set of warm clothes, and what if 2 emergencies happened, not just one?  After all, it was a long way out of the park from where we were camped!

 In the wee hours of the morning, the rain stopped, and in the morning we packed up under a cloudy threatening looking sky, ate snacks for breakfast instead of cooking the usual meal, and were "on the road" by 9am, a record for us!  Then what a lot of exercise!  I was energized by the memory of a cold last paddle out, and we made good headway.  The kids were very peaceful during our paddling, and Nathan even saw a big snake on an island that we passed by!  Once we were at our second (and last) portage, a drizzle started, but when we were loaded up again, it stopped.  We made it to the van dry except for the kids' arms, since I finally let them drag their hands in the water during our last stretch of paddling.

Park with four!

 The big kids were gone, so we went to the park with just the four of us.

 Matthew loved being the oldest kid, and did a lovely job of it!  And Daniel and he could play nicely without being constantly distracted by the older two!

Bon Echo July 19-21

 We tried a new park for our first trip this year.  The "backcountry" camping is a very small area, with two lakes.  It even has a garbage within a paddle of our site, so despite the fire ban we could dispose of our diapers and other garbage for the night.  This was a very tame outing.  Jennifer loved it, so we decided to extend our second trip two 4 nights instead of 2.  We were worried about space in the canoe, so we didn't dare make the trip too long!

 Jennifer was thrilled with camping.  She got right into it right away.  Pine needles and dirt-good for the digestion!

 How many people does it take to put up a tent?  We had a ladies and a men tent this trip.  First year with two tents!  7 in a 4 man is a bit squishy, almost as bad as 5 in a 2, right Chris?

 More dirt.

 Exploring and eating.

Not too many bugs, but a few!

 Nathan was much too busy climbing rocks to pose for me.

There was a sandy beach on the lake (Joeperry?) where we went for a good part of a day.  The young 'uns had a lovely nap after getting tuckered out in the water. 

The old'uns were much too busy enjoying SAND for a change.  So much different than the rocky and murky/slippery entrances to the water that we usually get!

And this year they got to pack two tiny backpacks with toys.  I suggested small buckets, shovels, shoelaces and an old sheet, and Melanie also added a tiny notebook and pen, which she even used!

I also took some leisure time to take a couple picture of Phil and I.  (Daniel and Jennifer are in it too, snoozing, but that hardly counts.)

Jennifer learned a new trick when we were camping, and was very proud of it!

And, unlike our other babies, enjoyed the rugged landscape, taking it as the physical challenge it was!  She scaled much larger rocks than these!

Nathan thought Jennifer's standing up trick, and showing off, was very very cute.  He is still (unless Jennifer is destroying his things) wrapped around her little finger.