The sweet smell of SUCCESS!
Today (Saturday) is the major switch over day here at camp 6 cabins to clean about eight boats to get set up for guests and the big bonus is a septic system to get unclogged. Guests were in cabin #5 and reported that the toilet was not flowing well and it wasn’t responding to repeated plunging. I asked them to move to another cabin a couple of days early to allow the system to settle down. So it dictated some “Banjo work” (digging with a shovel for the uninitiated). After a day of digging to uncover the access ports to the primary and secondary chambers and clearing the area for “action” with the bush wacker and lawn mower, I uncovered the problem. The crossover piping to the secondary chamber was plugged. I retrieved the patented crossover clearing device from the shop, hooked up a hose to the nearby spigot, got big bucket and net. The net was for capturing the offending “brown trout” or more specifically fatty concretion and getting it from the system. Great stuff! To make a long and messy story short – the crossover clearing device worked like a charm and the offending (offensive too) clog was removed. It’s great when things work the way I intend them. It a good thing too because we would have been in proverbial “deep shit” otherwise. Huzzah!
Every day is special here at Sportsmen’s camp. I took my cousin Earl and his friends down the Montreal River fishing yesterday. Please note: Down the River since the locals have confused many of the guests here at camp for years by saying “up the river” erroneously. You see no matter where you are water (like shit) flows down hill. And the Montreal River flows north in the section that we fish. The fishing was good not great – we caught several nice perch, a few walleyes, many smaller pike, and several nice bass. One of the highlights of the day was getting to see three eagles – one in immature plumage. We even got very close to one of the adult eagles perched in a tree. The day started as a typical Canadian day crystalline clear and beautiful. I got pretty burned. But ended with a thunderstorm chasing us off the river. The warm rain was quite refreshing though. I also had the added bonus of spending an entire day with my cousin Earl.
We saw a nice aurora event two nights ago. The auroral activity has been pretty low this summer thus far so it was great to see a nearly whole sky event manifest itself around 1:30 am the night before last. It started as brightness behind some clouds receding northward and later propagated to a nearly whole sky event with pulsing and some color. I woke two groups up to see the northern light. They had standing orders for a wake-up call if Northern Lights were seen.
The weather has been very rainy here for the past 3 or 4 weeks so the mosquitoes are still around and the camp is a little soggy. I am looking forward to some clear dry weather as well as the beginning of my favorite 2 weeks of the summer – the weeks when the Baxter/Poczik/Colombi clan are in residence. Card playing, beer drinking, bean bags, beer drinking, darts, beer drinking, croquet, beer drinking, wise and otherwise, beer drinking, great stories and conversation and this year Sailing in the as yet unnamed sailboat. My liver and hand to eye coordination is at peak efficiency so it will be a great two weeks! Hey we might even get some fishing in!
Is this heaven? No it’s Sportsmen’s Camp.
