Saturday is supposed to be a fun day. For some reason that never happens; too many chores to do, too much maintenance to catch up on, and far too much cleaning for my taste.

We cleaned the camp.

The women took over and we were simply slave labor at their beck and call while every single tent, camper, stall, and anything else they could think of was thoroughly cleaned. Poor Holder got stuck on washing detail, he spent the day at the wash bin scrubbing things they had us bring to him. It started with all of the clothing, Michelle supervised and helped him. Everything was hung out until the lines were full. I was then told to run more lines, so I did.

We moved everything out of tents and swept them and then moved everything back in. All of the windows were opened and every domicile was allowed to air out.

We brought up a load of gravel from the stream and spread it where we told to keep down the mud around the camp. We scythed back fast growing spring weeds from the edges of the camp and even trimmed a few aggressive tree limbs.

Lunch was a quick meal of pickle sandwiches with fruit and some of our remaining potato chips; we then got back to it.

By 2pm I’d had enough and put my foot down. There were Saturday chores the guys needed to do also, they got their one-time burst out of us and it was time for us guys to move on.

We turned to maintenance, I had both Amos and Holder carefully cleaning the solar panels while I checked and ran the sewage dumping the septic tank into our pit. I then ran some water down the line to pick up odd bits left behind.

I ran maintenance on all the vehicles and filled any fluids that needed topping off; no real leaks so far but that wouldn’t last forever. Full operational checks were run on everything, we even ran maintenance on the dog cart.

I showed Amos and Holder where the fresh water intake was and we cleaned out any debis that had caught in the filters. We checked our bridge for impending problems and walked the creek to spot any looming issues there. That was it, time to do evening chores.

The camp did look much better when we got back although I did see a suspicious pile or two of things that I was quite sure we’d be tasked with handling later on. Somethings just never change forwards or backwards in time.

Supper was almost ready and the night was surprisingly warm portending rain on the horizon for later tonight or tomorrow. I put on a disney movie and we enjoyed BBQ chicken with roasted bok-choi and onions for supper. I guess we were cleaning out the last of our store-bought veggies, better now than letting them go bad.

I brought out ice cream for the second half of the movie, that was a big hit as well. One of the things about store bought ice cream is once you open that container you have to eat it all, trying to save ice cream never really worked. So I picked one of our remaining ice cream flavors at random, it didn’t really matter what flavor it was. I told them it all had to be eaten tonight, naturally it turned out that wasn’t really a problem with the young people around.

I slept well that night; good food and good sex seem to make sleeping so much easier.

**** ****

Finally Sunday, a day of rest.

Well the rooster didn’t know that and the chores still needed to be done so up I got dreams still running through the back of my head.

Fires, coffee, chores.

Praying the entire while that breakfast would be ready soon.

Sonya had a sermon prepared, my exact thought was “Fucking Hell”.

I told her she had ten minutes and of course that pissed her off; honestly I didn’t care. We all sat there while she read some words from the bible and of course she went well past ten minutes.

I got a bottle out of storage, stood there in front of her while she preached and took a hit directly from the bottle to make my point; Sonya packed it in.

Breakfast cleanup finished I set everyone lose for the morning; I had decided that all of us needed a day to unwind. I told them I’d honk the horn when dinner was almost ready.

Michelle took Amos and Holder down to the stream to start teaching them fly fishing. Sonya had put some music on and Matilda was holding class on some sort of creative domestic art; she could have been making witches brews for all I knew.

I decided to find a trail to the Nemaha river. I started by using the drone, it was getting harder to see with the drone at that point as the leaves were coming in fast. I thought I saw one or two workable trails so I saddled up Lunch and then Brin and I went exploring.

I checked out both game trails leading down to the Nemaha, both were usable with some work I just needed to decide which one would make a better road. I need a boat launch down on the Nemaha so we could start to trade up and down the Missouri River, I knew this area would experience explosive growth starting very soon. I needed to be clearly established when the US Government started coming around.

I made the river from both trails and noted the state of each path and possible boat landing areas, that took up most of my morning and I felt it was time well spent. I managed to bag three rabbits along the way with Lunch only flinching the first time I shot, he was learning fast. Brin was happy as he had already figured out that hunting meant fresh meat for him tonight. Still, “fetch” was not a concept that ever crossed his mind, Lunch refused to fectch also; I fetched my own damn rabbits.

I made up Macaronni Salad and Hot Dogs for lunch. I had the condiments for every style of hot dog sandwich you could name, the only thing I didn’t put out was chili. Once everything was prepped I blew the horn on my truck and threw the hot dogs on to cook.

As people showed up I assembled the sandwiches and cut them into thirds so people could try each flavor and style. It was quite a feast. In the end we were all stuffed and we still had two plates of dogs left; Amos and Holder commenced to having an eating contest. I almost got sick watching them.

Needless to say school time was replaced by nap time, not a soul could keep their eyes open; I made sure to set an alarm.