Did you know that we will be able to see the space station this week? Apparently you will be able to see it just with the naked eye and if you have binoculars you should be able to see some of the structure of the space station. Sounds interesting.
Best Times to See the Space Station this week
July 20 — 10:39 p.m., looking west
July 21 — 11:04 p.m., looking west
July 22 — 9:54 p.m., looking west
July 23 — 10:19 p.m., looking west
July 25 — 9:34 p.m., looking west
DuckyFest 2009 was a huge success. We raised $2020 for the Children’s Wish Foundation and everyone had a good time. We had some great prize donated for the silent auction and had some very happy, lucky winners. We would like to thank everyone that donated or volunteered their time to help us out. We had lots of people step up to volunteer a good portion of their day. I cannot take credit for all the pictures. Thanks to Brenda and Nicole for ‘allowing’ me to steal some of yours.
We had some new volunteer train drivers. Metro appears to be making sure he is doing it right.
I don't see a wristband on that duck!!
Karaoke Mitch. Matchmaker music donated their time to do Karaoke all afternoon.
Even Elvis made an appearance.
That duck was everywhere
The Windup...
The Satisfaction.
Circuit Breaker was back once again. They entertained us with all the regular favorites and also some original Circuit Breaker music. They are in the process of putting together a CD.
Filled to capacity for Bingo on Friday
Kerry and Hayley volunteered their time to do some face painting and tattoos.
The dunk tank has arrived and it is full and waiting for it’s first victim. Do we have any volunteers? Probably not on a day like today. It is not very good camping weather today but is supposed to get better in the next day or so. Sounds like we will be creeping towards 30 C soon. Once again we were lucky and didn’t get hit with nearly the storm or rain that Winnipeg got. It was just an average rain for us, just perfect to make the flowers and potatoes grow.
Now that we have 15 ducks in the pond they are becoming quite high maintenance and demanding. They come across to the rec building squawking for bread the whole time and not just once a day. It is quite common for the whole group to come strolling a couple times throughout the day. And they don’t seem to know how to say please. Or maybe I just don’t understand quack.
Here are some of the updated pictures that I was able to get this past weekend.
The Ducky Express
Site 50
Site 34
Site 2
This is one of those weekends that I was very glad to see come to an end. It was a Murphy’s Law weekend – whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Add in a couple backhanded insults and it was a long, long weekend. It just seemed like all weekend we were fixing little issues – some I could control and some I couldn’t such as the one about not reading the menu properly. I also made a couple changes that I thought were for the better but was informed that I was wrong. I even had one thing that was implied that I was doing it to make more money instead of to make things better for those campers. The sad thing is we are talking about less than $10. At this point all I can do is shake my head and wonder if I will ever see them again.
So I now sit here Sunday evening closing the page on this weekend and glad that it is the first bad one of the summer and hopefully the last. Now it is time to move on to DuckyFest weekend. We are still adding in some more things to the schedule. We will be bringing back the dunk tank this year and are doing a special Friday night blackout bingo with the money being split between the Children’s Wish and the bingoer. I had some of our campers volunteer to do some face painting for the kids. We also added Mr Perogie’s perogies to the menu. After a couple years of poor supper turnouts and lots of wasted food we are doing away with the Baron of Beef dinner in favour of a simpler menu – hot dogs, smokies, home made french fries and perogies. I am sure you have all heard the motto KISS. Keep it simple stupid. I am in the process of finishing a newsletter with the full schedule that will hopefully be sent out Monday afternoon. The schedule is also on the DuckyFest page of our website. The long term forecast is looking good with high 20’s and sunshine. We are getting close to a full house with only about 3 more sites available and also 3 rooms.
I took advantage of the full campground and got some updated pictures of some campsites this morning. I also got a good one of the Ducky Express. I still have a few more sites that I want to get new pictures of this week and then I will be updated. We are just finishing up our new seasonals and also some new full service pool area campsites. The pool area sites always go fast so it will be nice to have couple more for people to choose from. I have started to work on the new map and have one area added on, but have not got the new bay done yet. The curvey lines take more concentration that the straight lines. I am thinking that we will name the new area Feather Bay, but am taking suggestions for the new name.
Sounds like we need to enjoy the nice weather today before we get some rainy days mid week.
I have almost sat down to write this lots of times in the past day or so, but just haven’t managed to actually get there until now. There always seemed to be something to distract my attention.
The biggest event this weekend had nothing to do with Easter, nothing to do with anything that I had planned actually. It was all beyond my control. Saturday afternoon our second momma duck came swimming into the pond with her 11 babies. They were the talk of the campground for the rest of the weekend. Baby ducks in general get quite a bit of interest but when there is that many it get double or triple the interest. We really had no idea how many eggs she had because her nest was extremely well hidden. Friday evening I managed to catch her off the nest so I went to take a peak and found around 5 little duckies and could only see a couple more eggs. Boy was I off track. It took a few countings to finally confirm on 11. They were not very easy to count when they are swimming madly around the pond and all look the same.
Momma and 11 babies
With the holiday on Wednesday this year things have been fairly busy since last weekend. This whole week has seemed like one extra long weekend. We had some campers that came in last weekend and are staying until after this weekend and some that came in on Monday for a few days and lots that came in on the 1st to stay until Sunday. Almost everyday we have a shuffling of sites with this weekend being completely full with the exception of a few tenting sites.
The first weekend in July is usually our Easter in July. I realized earlier this week that with all the campers that will still be here on Friday morning the Easter Bunny will have to be out verrrrrry early Friday morning to hide the eggs. Last year she was able to hide them about mid morning before the weekenders arrived, but not so this year. I am thinking it will be somewhere around 5:30 am when the bunny will be out and about . So if the Bunny looks a little tired on Friday evening that is why. The Saturday schedule is pretty full in addition to the Easter Egg Hunt we will be doing a craft, having an ice cream social and movie night at dark. This week’s movie is going to be School of Rock.
Last night’s fireworks went off without a hitch. We were even able to catch a glimpse of a few of the ones happening in Stonewall. Kind of like a two for one deal. We always do some kiddie fireworks earlier in the evening for the little ones that are in bed at dark. I go through and pick out a few that are easy to see even in the daylight. This year we had a parachute one that sent 10 little parachuters up in the sky. We even managed to find one after it was done. The others seem to have crash landed somewhere in the pond. We wondered how the mosquitos would be as we were watching the fireworks, but so far they aren’t too bad. We didn’t have bug spray on and only had to swat a couple times. So far they have been quite kind to us and hopefully it will stay that way.
This weekend we also have a few guests staying here for a family reunion in Grosse Isle. So far we have one couple from Minnesota and one from Iowa here. I am not sure where the others are from, but should be interesting to wait and see.
I hope everyone is enjoying this summer weather while we have it and hopefully it is here to stay for a while.
We have had some interesting people and campers stop in this week. We seem to be getting more and more people from different places lately. The first was an older couple who gave us a Reno, NV address, nothing seemed uncommon. Just a couple out travelling. As we talked to them throughout the weekend we found out that Reno is nothing more than a post office box and their ‘home’ is wherever their camper is parked. So, for 3 nights the duck was home. For the past 10 years they have spent few weeks in Nevada, 3 months in Southern California in the winter and the rest of the year they go wherever. They have been to 48 states and from here were heading to their last province left to visit. And you know they weren’t even staying in a fancy unit – just a regular travel trailer that didn’t even have a slide out. They were quite happy to be travelling with no plan. They told me that if they are driving along and see a road that looks interesting they will take it and see where it leads them. I wonder where they will be a couple weeks from now, or even next year at this time.
So, we go from the couple in the simple travel trailer to the couple in the 37′ fifth wheel with 4 slides and a baby freightliner to pull it with. It was quite the sight to see. They managed to pull her in and get it all set up for their two day stay. They had a little extra wiggling when they were backing up but that was to get the satellite on the roof lined up properly. I never did talk to them to find out their story other than that they were from Michigan. I don’t know where they came from or where they were going, but they were certainly doing it style. They pretty much had a house on wheels. They did have one problem getting the big rig out – they had to stop to move the baby duckies off the road. lol. Only at the duck!
I seem to have jumped ahead a few days now. All of a sudden it is Monday morning . This past weekend should have been called the weekend that wasn’t. There were a few disappointed people after having hot hot weather all week along comes Friday and pouring rain. We were somewhat lucky in that we only got 1.5 inches of rain and I have heard as much as 4 inches in some areas. There are always the die hards that make the best of it and enjoy the pool no matter what the weather. But, there were quite a few people that hid in their campers all day Saturday as well. Sunday started out looking nice and sunny but then the wind started up and it all changed. Oh well at least it didn’t rain anymore and the wind certainly helped to dry things up quickly. This morning had a bit of an interesting start with the power out from shortly after 7am until 9am. It made it difficult to put out the continental breakfast especially when my cinnamon buns were in the oven trying to cook. It was basically just cereal, juice and yogurt for the first little while.
This past week we added Karoake to the schedule for DuckyFest with Matchmaker Music and Karaoke donating their time to help us out. Everyone should start practicing their idol voices to show us their stuff on the 18th.
This past weekend was pretty busy around here and we are now just finishing getting caught up on things. I had some impromptu waffle making classes as we had some first time waffle makers come out for the 2 for 1 special. We also had lots of people come out for the ice cream social on Saturday afternoon. It was so hot outside that it was the perfect day for a treat. We were a little worried about bingo when it was 6:25 and we only had 5 players ready to start at 6:30. Metro did a few rounds of advertising and we managed to get a good crowd out in the end though. Next up was movie night on the outdoor theater. It was finally a nice warm night which made for an enjoyable evening. It was nice to be able to watch the movie without being cold.
The highlight of my weekend was that the baby ducks were coming out to get bread. I was able to get as close as a couple feet away from them. They are so funny to watch because they are not quite steady on their feet. Sometimes they would grab a piece of bread and end up landing backwards on their tails. Now we need two more names. hmmmm Any suggestions? I have no idea if they are boys or girls yet.
New babies
Our kittens are ready to go to their new homes already. There are still 4 left if anyone is interested. They would make perfect family kittens since they have had plenty of attention and are very used to being held by kids. Once again they were a popular attraction this weekend.
This weekend coming up will be our Canada Day celebrations. We will be setting up the inflatable bouncer on Saturday afternoon and there will be free Canada birthday cake on Saturday as well. I am also running a special offer where you get one of our stainless steel water bottles when you spend over $15 from the RDR Grill. We are doing the fireworks on Canada Day itself this year. Having the holiday on the Wednesday has made for interesting planning. I waited until I saw how people were booking before I made a final decision on when I was doing stuff. We have some that are coming in this weekend and staying until July 1 and then a lot are coming in on July 1 and staying until after the weekend. Some campers are just coming for few days somewhere in the middle. It is going to be a week of comings and goings and site changeovers.
It’s a baby boom around here. It is Wednesday evening as I am writing this and we have been on baby watch since yesterday afternoon when I noticed some funny things happening to the eggs. This morning we caught a glimpse of two little babies tucked safely under their mama. This afternoon she decided it was time to venture out into the big world. Apparently the pond a foot away from her nest wasn’t good enough and she had to herd them across the driveway to the other pond. The last time I saw them the mother was having some trouble getting one of the little guys moving. She was waiting for him to catch up so that they could cross the road. It is just about time for me to go for an evening stroll and see how they are making out. With a little luck I will be back with some pictures too.
Fast forward to Thursday morning. Last night I arrived at the pond just in time to see the mother duck escorting her two little ones back to the nest.
Momma duck and 2 babies
The people that have the 204 number to coincide with our 1-866 (toll free) number must be getting a little frustrated. During the course of the year I have more than one person tell me that they had been dialling the other number. Some even tell me that our number is wrong not realizing what they have been doing. They will absolutely insist that yes were dialling the 1-866 and it is my fault that the number wasn’t getting through. hmmm nope. I imagine there are even more that I don’t hear about. I can understand how frustrating it is for these people because I get quite a few people calling our toll free looking for MPIC. I do feel for them, although I don’t really know how to make people stop calling their number. It plainly says 866 before the 254-7636 and it says toll free.
The last few days have been soooooo nice. Hopefully we are finally going to get summer to stay. Our first movie night this past weekend went over ok, but it would have been much better if it had been just a bit warmer. Hopefully this weekend is better. We actually have a busy Saturday planned with 2 for 1 waffles, ice cream social, bingo and movie night all happening.
Our kittens have been moved outside and were one of the more popular attractions this weekend. It didn’t take long for word to spread that they were there. So far we have homes for 3 of them, but still need to find another five. They are most definately peoplized and will make very cuddly house cats by the time we are done with them.
Rubber Ducky Resort & Campground - A family campground located in Warren, near Winnipeg, Manitoba 