5-26-06 Friday: I've been feeling quite creative lately. It's so liberating to be actually living the life we've dreamed of.

Wiley and I had a nice long conversation with Fran (the female half of the other workamper couple) today. We sat on her patio and chatted for quite a while. She has a 4-year-old cat who looks like a really fat version of Monkey. Fran has 4 grandchildren with one on the way in October. She's a retired bookkeeper (for a trucking company) and her husband, Richard, is retired from a paper mill. They're Maine natives, and their daughter lives nearby. We hit it off really well. She was asking if we had a schedule preference (we don't), and when I found out she wanted to work Wednesday through Saturday, we agreed to work Thursday through Sunday. It's a small thing to us, but she was so grateful. I feel like I'm beginning to make a friend there.

I just realized that the sound I'm hearing is the fog horn on the lighthouse just out from the campground! How romantic!! (It's drizzling and foggy here again, after a lovely sunny morning. Everyone says they don't usually get so much rain!)

Anyhow, one of the things Fran told me is that the campground belongs to Lori and she really runs the show. Her husband John is just a figurehead, apparently, although Fran didn't use those words. She also said Lori can be pretty grumpy on Monday mornings, but otherwise is well organized, very fair and easy to work for. They're down two workamper couples right now--the couple that was supposed to return had a medical emergency and the other new couple they hired just called and said their daughter has just been diagnosed with cancer and they won't be coming, either. Wiley and I have volunteered to start working early if they can use us (we weren’t supposed to start work until 6/5).

Lori asked if I could do a little gardening. Wiley and I will start on that tomorrow and work at it until 2 PM when he's going to help John and Richard with the lobster bake. I feel like I really want to pitch in, because we're staying at their campsite for free, using their electricity and water, etc., and not giving anything back.

This afternoon we went into Camden to the garden center to get some veggies and pots for a mini garden in our tiny side yard. On the way, we wandered into a park. There was a gorgeous little stream and waterfall, and then a climb up a hill to a picnic area with a view over Rockport Harbor. I'm amazed how many working boats and really old wooden sailing ships are docked in all the little coves up here. It's so picturesque. One of boats today was flying a skull and crossbones! Wiley found a good place to fish on the harbor master’s dock. While we were in the harbor master’s office, I found a copy of an article about Andre the Seal. I saw a documentary years ago about Andre. He was found abandoned as a pup in Rockport Harbor in 1961. A local resident raised him, and he spent the next 25 summers hanging out in the harbor. He was quite tame and even did tricks. During the winter he was cared for at the Seaquarium in Boston, then released each spring and swam back to Rockport Harbor, a distance of over 150 miles. There’s now a marble sculpture of him in the park. He died in 1986, following a fight with a rival male seal.

We kept looking at the white cliffs over the stream, wondering whether they were sand or lime rock. When we got down to the harbor at the base of the hills, there was a huge lime kiln that was being restored. That explains the white cliffs--lime rock! Apparently Rockport was a major supplier of lime to the whole East Coast in the 19th century. The kilns converted the lime rock to lime, which was used in mortar and plaster until cement was invented. There were wooden ramps, train tracks and buildings over the kilns which were destroyed in a fire. Trains hauled the lime rock from local quarries, drove over top of the kilns and dumped the lime rock into the kilns. Since the kilns were right at the edge of the harbor, the finished lime was loaded directly onto ships for delivery up and down the coast. Fascinating!

It started sprinkling when we returned to camp, and the fog that had been predicted by the fog horn I heard rolled ashore. Undaunted, Wiley planted his garden. It turned out quite beautiful. We bought a half whiskey barrel and two pots, each a size smaller than the whiskey barrel. He planted squash and zucchini alternating with red and gold celosia in the whiskey barrel; in the next level he put hosta alternating with more red and gold celosia; on top he put a patio tomato in the middle surrounded by dark red verbena, lavender and little blue daisies. It’s gorgeous! He put some leftover squash plants and a beefmaster tomato plant beside the fence. He’s so talented!

We sat on the couch and watched campers check in for the remainder of the afternoon. The campground now looks quite full for the holiday weekend. There are even a few campers back here in the workamper area. It was fun to watch people back in huge rigs with varying degrees of skill. Everyone seems pretty quiet, maybe because it’s cold and very foggy, so no one wants to sit outside.

Wiley made pancakes and reheated leftover scrapple from a breakfast last week. We really enjoy having breakfast for dinner occasionally, and I really enjoyed a break from cooking. It’s amazing how much time I spend in meal preparation now that we’re both home all day every day. I’m running out of breakfast and lunch ideas (and I’m really bored with sandwiches). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!