August 25th, 2002
Another hot, sunshiny day, and after
the cool, wet weather in the first part of the month, it is welcome.
There hasn’t even been much wind. A lovely weekend for the last-minute
sunbathers and water skiers.
August
almost gone? Can’t be! We just got out of spring! Yet I understand the
kids go back to school tomorrow, so the Park will be very quiet next
week. There might be one last splash for the long weekend, and then
everything gets quiet. Once people quit thinking in terms of beaches and
boats, they quit thinking about parks. For those of us who live here, it
means peace and quiet, but, you know, when the tourists leave, we miss
‘em!
Those rains in early August have
everything looking nice and lush and green; there is no sign of that
brassy look the trees often have by this time of year. According to my
records, we got three inches of rain in July, and five in August. In
other, nearby areas, we hear of eight inches of rain in a few days, and
we have seen some dugouts on the Archerwill Grid (Highway #349) that are
full to overflowing. That big, shallow slough on the east side of the
highway actually has some water in it, where it was empty for a good
part of the year. It’s nice to see some water lying around, but a bit
late for the ducks. Luckily, it is a bit late for mosquitoes, too.
The
Beach Café will close late Monday, September 2nd, and Rose,
at the Park Store, will do the same. I asked Rose if she had any
specials on this week, and she said almost everything is marked down.
Good time to stock up on Greenwater tee shirts!
Joyce Chase of The Tackle Box tells
me she is going to hold a Sidewalk Sale on Saturday, August 31st,
with fishing tackle, boat parts, etc. on sale. They will close for the
season late Monday, but Joyce says if someone wants to rent a boat while
they are there cleaning up, there will be no problem.
I
had every intention of getting a bunch of fresh Park photos, and never
did get around to it. Funny how many things fall into that category
these days. The older we get, the more free time we have, and the less
we get done.
I went hunting for chokecherries on
Friday; there were some bushes by the marina that were heavy with them.
Somebody beat me to it, though, and got all the ones on the lower
branches. I left the high ones for fear of breaking the bushes, but did
manage to get an ice cream pail full. Doreen extracted the juice and
will use it to make jelly. Now she wants cranberries to use for making
juice; there seems to be lots around but most of them aren’t quite
ready.
We
planted a saskatoon berry hedge between our place and Mabel Butler’s,
our neighbor. They are kind of spindly little things that need some
protection, so Doreen planted sunflowers between the saskatoons. We
measured them last week and the tallest is nine feet tall, with another
not much shorter, and the stems are about an inch and a half thick at
the bottom. The flowers are eight or ten inches in diameter. There must
be more nutrients in the soil than we thought!