Workamping in Ohio

   

The horses on the ranch

 

Hillsides covered in trillium

Morels, it was my lucky day!!

     Ohio was a lovely place to be this year.  Rolling hills with beautiful spring wildflowers and delicious mushrooms greeted us when we arrived back in east central Ohio. We spent the spring, summer and fall at a private campground not far from Mark's family. Mark worked on the grounds crew. He spent his time cleaning up campsites, mowing and weed eating. I tried out working in the general store, then at the front desk, before I found a spot on the activities team. Mark thought I played more than I worked. I had so much fun, leading archery and water yoga. I got to do activities and read nature books with kids in the nature center. I planned crafts and lead hikes. I helped make some short movies (and co-starred with bigfoot's daughter!) and got paid to go canoeing. My schedule included leading line dancing each weekend, and Mark is much better at that than I am, so he took over for me and did a great job! Not sure what job could be better than this one was!!

One day the activities staff took a hike to harvest some chicken of the woods!
We did bring some campers with us too!

     We enjoy being surrounded by nature, and we were not disappointed. The raccoons were everywhere in the spring. They especially liked to scavenge in the campground dumpsters at night.

Part of Mark's job was to let these guys out of the dumpsters each morning.

I also learned that they like chili, when I caught one in my chili pot after we set it outside to cool off. Deer roamed thoughout the campground, and the songbirds nested in cabin siding, above lights and just about anywhere they could get into.

Baby birds that were in a hole in the cabin next to our camper

Did you know that Bigfoot is commonly spotted in eastern Ohio? I had fun searching for him with campers and might have spotted a place that could have been his bed on one of the hikes I led (like I said, I enjoyed my job here)!

Part of the activities staff at the Luau party 

      The weather was good, lots of warm sunshine and almost no biting bugs (a nice reprieve after last summer in Maine). The lily pads at Salt Fork State Park seemed to bloom for about 2 months!

We filled our bellies with fresh blackberries, (I think I forgot to put any in the bucket) and even had a small grape harvest at Mark's Dad's house . I grew a small garden.

I enjoyed my little garden. The kale did great!!

We had fun fishing and enjoyed fresh bluegill from the pond on Mark's Dad's property.

  We found an Amish auction, with a cash and carry table, and we enjoyed their fresh produce all summer.

There was lots of good produce at the
farmers market, and cinnamon rolls too!

   

The pumpkins and squash were beautiful!

     We were lucky to be able to watch 3 monarch caterpillars transform into beautiful butterflies this fall in the nature center.   I brought the first caterpillar in and must have had eggs on some of the milkweed I brought in later to feed it,  because we were very surprised to find the second and third caterpillars in the terrarium.

All ready to form its chrysalis

A perfect chrysalis

All ready to come out!

The next morning the chrysalis was black!
 Was the butterfly dead or ready to hatch?

It hatched!!! Here it is before it unfolds its wings!

This one is ready to fly now!

    Watching a butterfly take its first flight was pretty cool!

    Both our kids had big summers this year, although we weren't able to be with them for these milestones in their lives due to COVID 19. Kari spent 15 months working and traveling around New Zealand with her fiance Jess. When they realized that they wouldn't be able to have the wedding they were hoping for in the US, they decided to get married in Punakaki, (Pancake Rocks), New Zealand. We are so happy to welcome our new daughter-in-law, Jess, into our family. 

     We had fun while Kari bunked with us, for a month, while she looked for a job.  She is now in Dallas, Texas for her new job. Jess was able to fly over last week on a 6 month visa. They are waiting patiently for Jess's green card so that she can live and work here permanently. (She is from England, across the pond.)

     Ben finished his PhD in biochemistry, in July. We were able to watch his defense on Zoom.

After finding his first industry job, he bought a house in the Durham, North Carolina area that he shares with his boyfriend, Anthony.  Both kids are doing well, and we are excited for them both as they start their careers.

We got to celebrate Mark's dad's birthday with the family!

    

There were adorable baby goats at the family farm!

The summer was challenging as we had hoped to visit family and friends more while we were in Ohio this year. But there will be time for that in the future. We were very fortunate to have had a beautiful place to live, jobs, and good health during all of this. We hope that everyone is staying healthy and safe, and we look forward to life getting back to a new normal in the future. 

Winter in Florida

Little blue heron

Who knew that COVID-19 would change our world so quickly and completely.  I hope all our friends and family around our world are safe and healthy at home. We are an interconnected planet and hopefully because of this pandemic the world will begin to see our similarities more than our differences, and begin to make decisions for the good of all of us on this planet.

    This winter brought us and our camper home back to Thousand Palms RV Resort. We came down in mid December with the goal of finding a job before we flew home for Christmas with family.
In a few days time, we got the camper set up. found jobs where we could work together at a grocery store, and even enjoyed kayaking on the Withlacoochee River.

     We had a great Christmas in Ohio with family before driving back to Florida with our car that had been in storage.

     It was a busy winter!!  Back in December, we thought 'Hey, we could get jobs in a grocery store. Sounds like a good job for a couple of snowbirds. How hard could that be for a few months?' Who knew?? Well, working at a grocery store is harder than I had imagined, especially after everyone started stocking up for staying at home due to the virus.  I worked as a cahier, and Mark's job description was cashier/everything. Everything included stocking, tagging, bagging, retrieving carts, detailing and working in the liquor store (thankfully, not all in the same day).  The people we worked with were great, I especially enjoyed the teenagers.  One more 'adventure' to add to our list. We can say that we were 'essential workers' on the front lines of the food supply chain during the biggest health crisis any of us has ever seen.

    We had a great spot at the campground, with a big backyard that borders the woods (or the swamp depending on how rainy the season is).

                                                                                                                                                                                         
We enjoyed line dancing and even performed in the campground talent show.

We tried learning tai chi, and Kathy led some yoga classes. We visited with friends and family in January and February.

Sue and Jim Hanna on the Withlacoochee River with us!

We even did some house and dog sitting!

Fabio

     Our scheduled day off from work was Friday, but unfortunately many Fridays were rainy or windy, so we didn't do as much kayaking as we would have liked, until March, when the weather was better. Our favorite place this year was Silver Springs!!

We saw so many alligators, turtles, manatees, and even monkeys. The monkeys were brought in many years ago as part of a movie production.  They managed to escape and become a thriving population on the property which is now a state park. They were so fun to watch!

Manatees and monkeys all in one day on one river!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The campground pool was warm and wonderful this year. We had a fun Valentines Day dance,

and they even set up an ourdoor movie theatre one night to allow more 'social distancing" before all activities were cancelled.

We enjoyed the walking trails at the campground, and seeing the gopher tortoises walking on the trails some afternoons. We loved all the wildlife and enjoyed listening to the sandhill cranes fly overhead, watching the pileated woodpeckers fly around the campground, hearing the hawks and sometimes even a barred owl.

    It was another good winter in sunny Florida.

Loved seeing this guy in his hole when we went for our evening walks

Another beautiful spring morning on the river

Saw this gator at a park in Inverness

A spider lily at the river's edge.

Enjoyed the Atlantic Ocean in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

        Fall was a perfect time to be in Myrtle Beach. The crowds are gone and the beach is beautiful! The water is cool, but on a warm day it's still nice to walk in the surf. We enjoyed being on the beach almost every day and seeing how the tides and the wind move the sand. Some days the beach was flat, other days there were hills and ridges. The water inlets from lagoons could run straight into the ocean one day and the next day it might run parallel to the beach for a long stretch. One day you might walk across a little steam that cut across the beach and the next day it could be like a river flowing into the sea.
    We loved exploring on the beach to see what treasures we could find each day. It could be sea shells, or jellyfish, a sea star, a horseshoe crab, small crabs and live shells, or egrets, herons and sea birds. One day we found a butterfly wet in the surf. Mark carefully picked the butterfly up out of the surf and let it's wings dry out as it rode down the beach with us on Mark's finger. We also learned that horseback riding on the beach is very popular at that time of the year and we enjoyed watching the horses.
     We camped at a huge campground called Pirateland; it's like a small city! I can't imagine what the traffic would be like there in the summertime, but in the fall it's nice and quiet.  We found jobs at Belk department store doing support, which included stocking, recovery (puting things away where they belong and tidying up the clothes), doing clearance markdowns and sometimes filling online orders. They were great to work for, and accomodating in letting us work the same schedule. Most days we started at 6am, which was a bit early for us, but that meant we could be on the beach each afternoon after work.
    While we visited Ben in Durham, I was able to participate in a two day yoga class in Raleigh, NC. Ben and Anthony cooked a wonderful homemade pasta meal for us.  We were also fortunate to be able to attend a  concert of the Durham Medical Orchestra and hear Ben on flute and piccolo.

  We had a great early Thanksgiving with Grandma Cohen, Ben and Anthony!  Kari and Jess couldn't make it this year since they are in New Zealand having great adventures of their own! On Thanksgiving Day the campground hosted a wonderful morning meal, then it was time for some more beach walking. As we did last year, we worked Thanksgiving night and Black Friday.

Ben and Anthony making homemade pasta 

Ruby lipped cannonball jellyfish, some days these were all over the beach

Beautiful sunsets

This butterfly walked down the beach with us while its wings dried

Horseshoe crab

Loved finding cool stuff on the sand

We had a lucky shell finding day!

 Early November Thanksgiving meal with family