P I G hogs ............ and cats

On Saturday morning we went to Salmon Arm with 3 bags of dirty laundry and a shopping list. We stopped on the east side of town at a U-Pick orchard that we go to every year. Marilyn took a big stainless bucket into the cherry orchard and I headed down to the raspberries with two ice cream pails. One hour and $28 later we were on our way with about 2 gallons of cherries and maybe a little less raspberries. Hard as it may be to believe, we have managed to chew our way through most of that fruit already. We've got less than a combined total of a gallon of cherries and raspberries left. They were WONDERFUL. The cherries are big and juicy. The raspberries were just barely ready to pick which actually worked out well because they are keeping, although they won't have to keep much longer.

G-II is getting to be well known around the campground. We now walk the perimeter of the campground (probably 35 acres) at least once a day. He goes and hides if he realizes that I am getting ready to take him for his walk but the silly part is that he really enjoys it, once we get out of sight of the bus. He is almost impossible to drag away from the bus but once we get away from it then he turns into Mr. Sociable. He rubs up against everyone we meet, including all the dogs. He gets lots of attention from all the little girls in the park. He watches squirrels and cowers whenever we meet a "big noise" (car or truck). But most of the time he just puts his tail up in the air and drags me along about as fast as I can walk. Once he gets back close to the bus then he really starts to drag me and when he gets back inside he usually collapses next to his water dish and pants for about 15 minutes.

Yesterday we took a couple and their 3 kids on the water for ski lessons. Two of the kids were pretty little but they got a feel for skiing on the boom. Mom & Dad had a great time - we got him up on skis and she skied first and then wakeboarded for her first time. That's probably what we enjoy the most about being out here - taking kids that have never done anything other than sit on a tube on the water and teaching them to do something athletic that they will then be able to do for the rest of their lives. This couple is here for another week so we will take them out again. We find that it works best if the kids get a day on the water, then sleep on it and then go back again. Somehow our brain gets all the new motor skills sorted out over night and the 2nd time always goes much better. Even when they don't actually get up the first time, they seem to learn from it and the 2nd time goes way better.

Marilyn has stopped calling wakeboarding the sport of fat old broads but she still gets amazed looks from the young punks on the wakeboard boats when we pass them or when we go under the Mara bridge and they are looking down from the top.