Perspective - It's a Grand Thing

I grew up in a tiny town, where my Dad owned a hardware store and Mom cooked and cleaned and also worked at the store once we started going to school.  Summers were spent running around the neighborhood until it got too dark to see, and sometimes we even would lay on the grass late at night to look at the stars.  When we got older, we started going to The Lake.  No matter which late folks around town went to, it was still called "the lake", sometimes "the lakes", as in "are you going to the lake this weekend?".

Swimming off the dock, fishing with our Dad, digging our bare feet into the muck at the bottom of the lake...all part of the experience.  Catching minnows with a net, collecting turtles, and yes, dealing with mosquitoes after dark were part of my childhood.

My neighbors here in Minnesota had their son, daughter-in-law and two grandkids visit from Texas this week.  When the kids were encouraged to take their shoes off to run through the grass, they declined, saying that they were afraid of fire ants (we don't have fire ants here, just the regular old picnic ants).  They didn't want to go into the lake for fear that they'd run into a fish.  Their parents wouldn't go in either - too mucky and "dirty" for them (the lake is very clean).

My neighbors told me these things with a sad, disappointed look on their face.  You see, they grew up like I did here in North Dakota/Minnesota.  But their jobs took them to the big city, and later to Texas before their son got to experience what we did.  And now they might as well be from a different planet, wondering how on earth we all survived growing up the way we did.

My 4 year old grand niece is getting the lake experience - she loves the water; even dives off the high part of the pontoon into the lake already.  Her shoes are rarely on (except for a couple of months when her Mom couldn't convince her to remove her snow boots), and she stays up late by the campfire, shooting off sparklers and roasting marshmallows.  She's a lucky girl indeed.

Working For a...Living?

Although I love my Summer Palace enough to have bought a share of the Association, there were things that irritated the bejeezus out of me.  The Annual Meeting was a free-for-all, with lots of folks airing their frustrations.  The common theme, it seemed to me, was a lack of communication, so I stepped up and volunteered to be in charge of a monthly newsletter for the Village.  At least 200 hours of work later, my first issue was published.  I never wrote a newsletter before, so I had to figure out a template to use, articles to write, and how to lay it out at the printers.  All in all, it was a work I'm proud of, and hopefully it'll go a long way to fixing that pesky communication problem we seem to have.  I'm already working on the August issue!

I also volunteered to be a member of the 2012 Sounding Board, which is the predecessor to a more formal board of directors.  Right now, private owners are improving, marketing, and selling the place, but once we sell 75% of the lots, the Association takes over (and we're scared to death about that).  Our first Sounding Board meeting finally took place the last Saturday in June, and boy did we have a lot to talk about!  Since we're the predecessor to a board of directors, we decided to start acting like one, electing a chairman, vice-chairman, and secretary, and following Robert's Rules.  Since I was the only one taking notes I got elected secretary, not that I minded.  Since communication is such a strong theme for me, I like putting some order around what we're doing.

So in addition to working full-time at my real job, I'm feeling lately like I have a part-time, unpaid job too!  But I have a lot (to me) of money invested here, so I want to make sure I do what I can to make it succeed.

I harvested my first tomato (Cherokee Purple) yesterday, which is really early for this heirloom.  I didn't think that plant was even going to survive, much less produce tomatoes, but it's starting to go crazy.  I've been eating the sugar snap peas right off the bush - they're so fresh and sweet.  And the wild raspberries are in fruit behind my camper.  The cucumbers are growing well, I've got three hot pepper plants with fruit that'll be ready soon, and tons of white onions coming along nicely!  The rhubarb and asparagus are in their first year, so no harvesting them until next year.  I didn't make it the Farmer's Market last Saturday, so I'm excited to see what they have for me this week!