"Weekend" in Port Orchard

We needed to go over to Port Orchard to mow, read the mail, get hair cuts and check on the house so after chores on Tuesday, we drove over on our "weekend" of Wednesday and Thursday.  Traffic around Seattle was tolerable for rush hour.

The campground staff use the tractor with an attachment
to crush the trash in the dumpsters.  This county only
recycles plastic bottles and aluminum cans so the
dumpsters fill up quickly.  

Two doggies resting on the beach.

Some campers left a child's potty by the dumpster. Hmmmmmm?

Sand castle on the beach

Early morning paddle boarders.  I was interested to watch how to get up
on the board.  I would like to try one out before we leave but I'm
not sure I can heave my behind upwards to stand up.  My friend says I could just
sit and paddle which will probably be my experience.

My dahlias in bloom at home.  Lots of raking, hoeing, watering and trimming to be done in one day.

We have 4 apple trees with fruit this year.  We are certainly virgin orchardists.
We did hardy tree pruning 2 winters in a row which seemed to produce
a bounty of apples like this tree.  We know one tree has Transparent apples
but we don't know what the other two varieties are. These are nearly ripe and
hopefully, they will still be on the tree at the beginning of October.

Two of the trees have nice big yellow apples but they are rotting on the branches.
Apple maggot or ants have attacked.  

This little sunflower sprouted in a plant pot on the deck from bird seed
that the squirrel family buried.

We enjoyed a warm evening on our deck  with candle light.

Though the grass is mostly brown, the weeds have to be mowed in the
field.

Blackberries for breakfast from our yard in Port Orchard.  We planted this tree for our Ranger friend, Bruce, who passed away last winter from a rare cancer.  The cedar has grown more than a foot and doesn't seem to mind not getting much water.

Back at the campground, the camp hosts on the North side have left for the summer
and the camp staff are down by two employees over the long weekend so I said
I was willing to ride my bike over there to do the Reserve sign posting
this morning. Our bikes are quite rusty and in need of tuneups but I made it over and
 back to tell about it!  I even saw a deer on the bike path through the woods.

Children's chalk drawings on the road in the North Park.

Leprechaun 

I am intrigued by the need for campers to leave rocks on the tables. It happens
at nearly every campsite.  This one did have a cheerful face drawn on it.

We're guessing this is a squirrel trap??  Or a rock covering a ball??

It's Labor Day Weekend.  At the last possible moment, 3 PM, Olympia lifted the burn ban on any outdoor campfires.  Here is Ranger Josh removing the burn ban sign.  Sonny walked around to all the sites and shared the news.  Last year, when this happened, the campground was a haze of smoke within an hour.  Today, the winds are gusty so there's no smoke to be seen as yet.  Though campers are happy, we've only sold 12 wood bundles in the first hour.

Kayaking Lake Wenatchee on a calm afternoon

The lake is usually calm in the early morning but the wind whips up the waves in the afternoon. Monday, the lake was calm all day so Sonny let me off of chores a little early so that I could paddle for a few hours.  I left the beach and paddled along the Eastern shore about 1/4 of the way up the lake.  I saw birds, flowers, plants and even a few trout in the clear water .

Leaving the beach area

I paddled around the point into the Wenatchee River headwater.
During the fishing season, there are gulls looking for left over
bait and treats.

Very shallow here this time of the year.  The lake has fallen at least
5 feet in the month we have been here.

I turned West around Emerald Island where two yellow kayaks were
on the shore.  Dirty Face mountain in the distance. The peak is
5989'. The trail is 9 miles with a 4000' elevation gain.  Not a
trail for creaky knees.

Another gull species

The water is so clear and quite shallow along the shore and
around the island.

These ducks are near the YMCA camp beach on the North shore

The Y camp has several cabins in the woods.  All was silent as no campers
were in residence.

I found this dragonfly struggling on the water surface.

I got the dragonfly on my paddle but he couldn't lift off.  Maybe he was
too wet to fly.

Indian paint brush among the rocks on the shore.

I'm guessing this is milfoil in bloom.  These pretty little flowers were
a floating mass on the water surface.

I paddled about an hour before heading back to the beach, which is the pale
line over the kayak bow.  Lake Wenatchee is 7 miles long.  We haven't
generated enough energy to paddle all the way to the White River.
Another day, Sonny and I paddled up the West side of the lake before paddling
across to the North side.  The lake had gotten choppy from power boats
and jet skis.  The breeze began to blow which helped us get back
to shore quickly.

Week Three

The campground is full on the weekends but only about half or less during the week.  We had 80 departing sites last Sunday which took us to Tuesday to complete.  Many campers hold over for Monday and less traffic so that added to our long list.  Lots of walking so I shouldn't complain.  We try to get to the beach every day for litter patrol especially after the weekend day crowds. There’s always trash that gets blown when the wind comes up so it’s hard to keep the litter from flying out of the bucket.  I appreciate the rains we had last week because it has kept the dust down when we rake.  The fire ban has been lifted in Western Washington but not here.  Maybe for Labor Day.  There's a rain shower tonight that will keep the rowdies in their tents.

On our days off, we went into the Wenatchee Costco and Safeway for groceries.  It was almost 90* there so we were glad to get back here to the low 80s.  Thursday, we picked up our friends in Plain and went to the Douglas County Fair in Waterville, WA.  We checked out all the exhibits and show animals. We drove back over Badger Hill which gives a spectacular view of Wenatchee.  

Summer is winding down for campers with school starting in some districts on Monday coming up.  This morning, it was barely 60* at 8 AM.  However, that didn’t stop kids from playing in the water at the beach.  Last night, at sunset, I watched a little girl run pell mell into the lake, not fazed at all by the cold water and fading sun.

Tomorrow, the Camp Hosts at North Park will head for off an Alaskan cruise.  They already stayed 3 weeks longer than they planned due to the August hosts canceling at the last minute. We offered to pick up some of their work so I'm going to bring my bicycle back from Port Orchard next week.  It's a long walk to the North Park without a bridge over the river on our side.

We have a coffee break at 1 pm and take in the beach
views.  This woman had many tattoos including
the one around her belly button.  I didn't have enough
zoom to see what it actually was.  Bullseye?

No campfires so s'mores have to be improvised.  I cut
out the graham cracker and just went for the big
marshmallow and choco frosting.

One of our tasks is to water the new trees so here is
Sonny lugging water buckets.

Some of the vine maples are turning already.

It's sockeye salmon season.  The salmon
mostly hang out at the other end of the lake
so this one must have gotten away only to
die on the beach.  This young man was
showing off his find to his family......

"Take it Away!!"  He's heading for the
rocks where the gulls will get a meal
with it.

One windy afternoon, the kite boarders came to the beach.  I was
sorry that I didn't see them out on the water.  Their sails
look like bat wings on the beach.

Post Cereals has come out with a new Grapenuts  breakfast meal so they
teamed up with State Parks to broadcast their cereal, fitness and the
outdoors.  We've been asked to hand out free samples.  

Site 65 kids made a squirrel catcher with  veggie bait.  The squirrels are
pretty quick.  Don't know if they were successful in catching one.  I
asked what they would do if one was caught but they
hadn't thought that far.

We had lunch on Wednesday in the Pybus Market in Wenatchee.

Peaches are in season and so good!  These won first prize
at the fair.  They are HUGE, the size of soft balls.

She's holding a 4 year olds chinchilla.  His fur was soooo soft but those
ears were something else! 

We visited the Douglas County mobile command center 5th wheel.  The man
in the white shirt designed the center and was given a grant to have it
built in Ferndale, WA.  It was used most recently at the Pateros forest
fire to coordinate agencies.  The walls inside and out are white board for messaging.
The man in the front here, was born in Portland, ME but spent most of his life
in the South so his accent isn't very down east.

In the upper portion of the 5th wheel, is an interrogation room
with a command view of fair activity.

On display at the fair.  We were guessing it was a boar.

Alpacas and their 4-H handlers.I like talking with
the youngsters about their projects. 

We never thought about growing hair on cattle but apparently, the
4-H kids do.

Did you have a clue?  I wanted to look in a cow's mouth to see if there were
upper teeth. 

I thought my friend, Janice, was kidding when she said these were "Oreo cows".
They have another bred name but really do go by Oreo cows.  This calf was
born in April.

Yesterday, we noticed a horrific smell near the wood pile.  We discovered it
was the wasp catcher bag.  We've seen them all over the park and thought
the ranger had placed them.  We asked what made that smell and learned
that other campers had hung them, not the ranger.  He said get rid of them. Now
that they are full of dead wasps, they smell incredibly bad so here's Sonny
getting rid of the 3 that were in our site.

We noticed this doggie at the beach, today, wearing pants.
We heard that the dog had recently had surgery and
that's why he was wearing pants.

The ever hungry chipmunk was able to get inside the bird
feeder to get the last few seeds.

The forecast said rain possible tomorrow afternoon but his blew in
around 7:30 PM this evening.  The sky looks like it's on fire.