New England's Narrow Road

More Info on The Girl Scout Camp

tent city at camp chenoa — "Tent City" at Camp Chenoa

I have posted some photos of the girl scout camp near my place (all photos were taken in the off season) and the following is from a reader of this blog who works at the Camp Chenoa girl scout camp during summers in Antrim, NH. Thought I’d post it for anyone wanting more info.
She says:
“Tent City is used for administration staff, like the nurse and the rock wall supervisor. I was a CIT/Camp counselor at Chenoa this past summer, and I’ve spent entire summers there for 5 years. Currently i’m about to turn 18, but ladies, its still amazing when you an older teenager as well as a younger child. Girls go between ages 6/7(The Itty Bitties) And 17 if they decide to be a CIT or Dream Worker. It’s an amazing place to send your children if you aren’t close enough to Chenoa’s sister camp Farnsworth. I highly suggest this camp to parents who have adventurous children! Even children who are excited in making friends! There are so many activities and fun things to do, and the counselors are very funny. Pickles is my camp name! If your daughter is interested, look Chenoa or Farnsworth up and sign up! There are three sessions, 2 weeks long at a time! Your daughter can spend a week, or 2 weeks there in cabins, and camping out at the various camp sites around the camp itself such as The Point and The Treehouses!”

Camp Chenoa wraps around a large section of Gregg Lake and is located in a beautiful area of New Hampshire. At the other end of the lake is the Gregg Lake beach area and this is a photo from the summer of 2010. The camp is located in those woods on the right in this photo. Read more about the camp at their site Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains.

lake and raft at Gregg lake, NH — Gregg Lake Swimming Area, Summer 2010

The Girl Scout Camp (newenglandsnarrowroad.wordpress.com)

Chicken Duty For Thanksgiving

chickens in a coop — How I Spend Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Just a quick note today before I attempt to cook my turkey, to wish all my faithful readers a happy turkey day!!

It’s 6:30am and in about a half hour I will go to my neighbor’s house and release their chickens from the coop. The cute chicks have grown and there are a lot of them! Then tonight at about 4:30 (it gets dark so early now) I will go back and close the door on their coop and hook up the electric fence so the bears and coyotes won’t have a feast. The chickens go in on their own when it’s dark.

I’ll do that all weekend while my neighbors are away because they have places to go and people to see, whereas I don’t. It’s pretty much like that for all holidays. I spend it taking care of their chickens, which I don’t mind now that the rooster is gone. (He’s in their freezer I’m told).

I almost had to quit my chicken duty when the rooster insisted on trying to slash me with his talons. You wouldn’t think that a “bird” could be so scary, but they have sharp talons on the back of their feet and he would fly up at me and kick out his feet just because I was in his pen! Fortunately I had a bucket with me and he’d hit that instead of me, but I didn’t like that and since I get paid in fresh eggs, I figured it wasn’t worth it!

So the next thing I knew the roosters were being “harvested” – I didn’t even know there was more than one -and now it’s safe to enter the pen again.
Other than that my day will be filled with cooking and cleaning up and watching football – Go Pats! It should be a relaxing day. Enjoy!

Between Fall And Winter

log home black and white — The Gray Season

In some areas I suppose it may still look like Fall and technically it is, but this is really the gray season if you ask me. The leaves have been blown off the trees and raked up out of the yards and their gray branches mingle with the hemlocks and pines on the hills. I think it’s pretty cool to be able to see so much now with the trees bare. All the houses that have been in seclusion all summer are now easy to see up on the hills and back in the woods. It’s easier to go for walks in the woods (wearing bright orange of course, because it’s also hunting season) because the weeds and tall grass has died.

We had another beautiful Fall here in New Hampshire and I truly enjoyed it and now we have our wood stacked and the chimneys are clean and ready to go. This weekend some cold weather is hanging around and I’m thinking of starting up the wood stove for the first time this season. I have one cord of firewood, which isn’t a lot, and I had some left over from last year, but it should help to supplement my oil burning and help with the cost.
I am waiting for the snow. In my opinion, if it’s going to be cold, then I want some pretty snow to look at. I don’t have to go out and drive in it as much as someone who goes off to work each day, but I do have to take my son down the road to the bus stop each morning and I don’t have a garage so that means shoveling, brushing off the car and melting the ice off the windshield. I still like the snow. Bring it on..!!

What A Way To Begin The Day

I was up at 4am which is not unusual. The cat gets antsy at that time of day and wants to go out. I get up, make my coffee and begin checking my e-mail while the cats go in and out.

This morning it is pouring rain but Richie HAS to go out. First I open the slider and he just looks, so I shut the door. A few minutes later he is back at the door and when I open it this time he dashes out into the rain. I know he won’t stay out long, but those hunting instincts are very strong in him and I swear he just has to kill something! This time of year the chipmunks are hibernating and he really misses torturing them, so he has turned his attention to the birds, but they aren’t out this early. In fact, the cats catch a lot less this time of year.

Richie has a bad habit of throwing himself against the screen door, paws up, to get my attention when he wants to come in and if I don’t see him right away he’ll climb up the screen. He refuses to be ignored.

So, sure enough, after a few minutes he is at the door and I know he is soaking wet, so I let him in and go to get a towel to dry him. That is when I notice that something is not right. I find to my horror, that he is holding a little gray mouse in his mouth. I immediately pick him up and throw him out the door before he can drop the thing, which is probably only half dead, and as soon as his feet hit the outside deck he turns in a flash and runs back inside. This time he won’t let me near him and heads for my bedroom. Sure enough he drops the mouse – I was right, it can still run – and as I close my bedroom door on him, I see the mouse scoot under my bed.

So I waited until he began meowing at the closed door and then went to see what was up. I opened the door and the cat came out. No sign of the mouse. Now I must go search for the half dead thing that is probably hiding some place in my room.

This has not been a good day so far and it’s only 5:15am.

Update:
At 6:00am my son got up and helped me flush the mouse out of the bedroom. That is not what I intended, but while the cat was looking the other way, my son started yelling, “there he goes!” and I saw the little thing waddling off toward the kitchen, so I grabbed the cat and threw him out the door towards it and a chase ensued which ended up with the mouse and cat in the basement. Okay, that’s good.

At 7:05am Richie comes walking through the kitchen with – yup, you guessed it – the mouse in his mouth, and he is heading to my bedroom again! (I leave the basement door open because the litter box is down there.) So, he dropped the mouse and began playing with it. He chased it around under my bed and out into the hall and finally picked it up in his mouth, so I picked him up and ran to the door and threw him out – way out – so he couldn’t quickly pop back in.
At last I can relax and not think about that mouse any more.

Read about my Adopted Shelter Cats here.