The adventure continues... it has been almost four weeks of camping now and progress has been made and lots of wildlife has been seen.

Yesterday the girls were playing in the big field which is bordered by a forest leading down to a ravine with a creek. There is a fence, but it is a run down and has quite a few holes. Our neighbor, whom we had complained about for his rowdy, drunken ways happened to see them playing and walked over to tell them to watch out for bears. At that moment, a hungry black bear came out of the bushes and was making his way towards Annie. Our neighbor told the girls to run, and they booked it for the door of the bus, and he scared it off. I happened to look out the window just as the bear was running up the field and back into the woods.

So for the next month or so, the bears will be hungry and we will be living in the middle of their migratory path. I guess the ravine is their walkway to wherever it is they go in the summer.

On the other hand, there aren't any bees. The trees have burst forth in a glorious splendor of pink and white, but I've only seen one bumblebee and a few wasps. It looks like it might be a slim year for fruit.

I've gotten the hang of doing the dishes... I haul the water in my collapsible water container which has a spout. Then I put it on a table and put large bin on the ground under the spout to catch the graywater. I quickly scrub the dishes down with soap, and put them down in the bin. When I'm done scrubbing, I turn on the spout and rinse everything off. The water is generally lukewarm and I have learned to let go of using hot water for this. I was trying to heat it up but we make so many dirty dishes that it would take hours to heat enough hot water on the camp stove. It's been so rainy a fire wouldn't work either on a consistent basis. I now have the additional luxury of an indoor portable buffet stove but it takes quite a while to heat water on it.  When I am done with the dishes I dump the water in the compost pile.

Is cold water...bad? Tradition says yes - every woman in my family washes in excruciatingly hot water. BUT, from what I know of germs, dishes would have to be boiled for a few minutes to be germ-free.  It's actually the soap that is cleaning the dishes, and the warm water helps get rid of the grease. If a greasy residue is left, that eventually could cause some problems I suppose. We don't eat much greasy food though.  So far everything is feeling very clean.

The bus windows that needed to be removed are almost all removed and covered with metal and plywood and primed, and half of them are also fitted with insulation.  This weekend we will finish those windows up, finish bolting down the floor, and create an electrical and plumbing plan.  Wiring has to get done before we finish insulating the walls.

The weather has calmed down and we are enjoying seeing how much wildlife we can spot... bears, bald eagles, robins, hawks, geese, wild rabbits and today I saw a weird white animal off in the field that appeared to be grazing.  It was smaller than a goat but much large than a cat.  The girls have seen it before but we can't find our binoculars.  Hmmm...