Tower Camp Weekend - Sunday

Sunday morning was so cold! It was nice and warm in my sleeping bag but my nose was frozen and I really dreaded getting up. Fortunately for me, I have a wonderful husband and sons and on cold mornings they run what they call a "Princess Camp" for me. They get up, start the fire and make coffee - all while I lay in my warm sleeping bag. Once the fire's hot and the coffee is ready I crawl out of the sleeping bag and run to the fire. They call it Princess Camp and I LOVE it LOL
I hate to be cold and crawling out of a toasty sleeping bag on a cold morning to build a fire is just not pleasant at all.

I heard the Youngest Island Boy and his dad talking while they were building the fire and the Youngest said "so we build a fire so she can be warm and then because she's not cold, she's not cranky and we're all happier?" The Island King responded by saying "Yep, and you need to remember that because a cranky woman is never fun to have around" LOL

Once the fire was roaring and the coffee kicked in, the Island King and both boys headed out on their morning hunt. I puttered around the camp, cleaning up breakfast dishes and reading by the fire. I love an early morning spent next to a warm fire.

They didn't see anything this morning and even Buddy couldn't stir anything up so they came back empty handed but they have so much fun that catching something is just a bonus.

The Youngest decided he wanted to make a trail through the woods so off he went with his little hatchet. We could hear him right inside the tree line and he was so busy. He meant he was creating a trail LOL

An hour later he came back and proclaimed his trail complete so it was time for us to take a nature walk. We got to the entrance of his trail and were surprised at just how well he'd done. He'd even marked the entrance with orange tape.


The only drawback was that while he'd made it wide enough he'd only made it tall enough for himself LOL


We entered his trail anyway and found that it led around and down to a natural gully that runs through the property. It was treacherous terrain but I made it without falling down the hill and smashing the camera to pieces.


It was a relief to get back up on to one of the main trails and not have to swing down into the gully on vines or walk crouched through the brush LOL


We kept walking until we got to the end of the gully. There's not a lot of undergrowth here and there were all kinds of butterflies, flowers and bugs around.





From the end of the gully we followed a narrow trail down to the creek that runs along the northern edge of the property



This is the prettiest little creek and it's always crystal clear. It's tucked up under the trees and makes the softest babbling sound.



Buddy has never seen a creek before and was fascinated with it. He stood with his front paws in the water, just staring at it for the longest time. We were surprised because he's been around the Bay and the Gulf and seems to hate the water. He wasn't hating this water at all.


Jake was fascinated with it too


From the creek we made our way to the spot where the Island King got the rabbit the day before and I had to take his picture, sitting on the log where he was when he got the rabbit



There's a huge squirrel's nest above this log and the Island King has gotten a lot of squirrels from this area


Here's Buddy, doing what Beagles do


We passed a big spider on our way back. I have yet to get a good, clear picture of a spider - they're always blurry. And since the picture's blurry you have to trust me when I tell you that this was a big, cool looking spider.


After several hours of traipsing through the woods we made it back to camp


The boys spent the rest of the afternoon target practicing while I packed up the camp (my contribution in return for Princess Camp LOL)

The Island King got out his black powder rifle and man is that thing loud! It sounds like a cannon going off and smokes horribly but he loves to shoot it.



His targets were a LONG way off but he hit them every time


I can barely even see that far LOL

After much procrastination, it was time to go home.


We had so much fun and even though I was tired and looking forward to sleeping in my warm bed, I didn't want to leave.

But we're going back for almost a week around Thanksgiving and I can't wait!

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