July 13th, 2008: It’s been a nice summer day, except for some light rain and thunder late in the afternoon.
 We spent the week at Greenwater. We went there on Monday, with stops at Grimson’s and at Jenny’s place, on the way. It never stopped raining, and our motor home developed leaks where there weren’t any before. Russ Feairs and family were out there at the same time we were; Russ told me there was four and a half inches of rain during the week. Almost two inches of that came Thursday evening and night, with some marble-sized hail thrown in. It was so deafening in the motor home that we couldn’t hear each other.
Wednesday was a beautiful day, though, and the beach was crowded. The bad weather didn’t really affect us; we aren’t much for sitting around outside and we can have coffee, visit people, and read just as well in the rain as in sunshine. We managed visits to the Chase’s, Miller’s, and Dunlop’s homes, and with many more people around the Park and at the Beach Café for coffee. There always seemed to be a lot of people at coffee, just like the old days. We had a ball.
There seemed to be a lot of kids around the Park; both of us noticed it. Could it be that the Park is again becoming a family destination? Or is it just a natural cycle?
Some of the changes we noticed: Rose and Jim Steadman have added a full-length lean-to to the south side of the Park Store, which gave a great increase in the amount of product display space. I asked Rose if it gave her any problems with shop-lifting, but she said they monitor it with closed-circuit TV and also don’t stock items out there that would appeal to the light-fingered set.
Connie and Gary Schmidt added to the west side of the Beach Café, giving them more kitchen space as well as Take-Out and Ice Cream space. Connie says it makes a big difference to the convenience of working in the kitchen.
All the Park RV sites in Hilltop are electrified, and about half those in Cranberry. Still, when we got there Monday evening, we got the last electrified site and that was only because someone had just cancelled.
At the entry gate, both gates were open with a sign telling those with valid permits to use the right-hand gate. At last! We agitated for that for years. There is nothing more frustrating than having to wait in a long line-up when one already has a permit.
The geese were rounded up and hauled away on the 2nd, but a few escaped. We saw them sunning themselves in the rain out on the Peninsula. Eight or ten are a lot easier to take than seventy or eighty. Someone, I can’t remember who, said a similar problem was solved at another Park by letting a dog run loose when there were no people around. The dog hazed the geese until they got discouraged and nested elsewhere.
We met our newest great-grandchild on the way home Friday. We stopped at Tisdale and visited Aaron, Nicole and Logan, who is just over one month old. He was born on June 7th in Saskatoon, while we were away on our Dakotas trip. He really is a fine looking lad.
Mike was there, too, so of course we had to take some four-generation pictures, with Logan lying in the old family cradle. It was originally bought by my great-grandparents, the Woodhulls, and my grandmother was the first child rocked in it. She was born in 1877, making the cradle 131 years old. The cradle left the family for a few years, but was bought back and has stayed in the family ever since. It came to us in 1961, in bad shape and heavily coated with black varnish.  I refinished it and repaired it for Mike and Jenny. Many of our grandchildren, including Aaron, have been rocked in it since, and now it is serving the sixth generation.
Being quite shallow, it can only be used until the kid starts rolling around, but in my grandmother’s time kids were kept so swaddled up that they couldn’t move, so the cradle would be useful for longer. Logan is now sleeping in a beautiful crib that his grandfather Mike made for him. It will do him for years, or until a newcomer bumps him out of it. |
