Camp

Just splittin' some wood...

A friend of camp had to cut some trees down at their house and they donated some wood to us! Time for a fun project!

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First step, getting all the wood to camp. It took two trips with the ol’ F-150 to get all of the logs here to the property. Then I borrowed a wood splitter and cleared the schedule for a day.

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(But first!) I needed somewhere to store the split wood. A quick stop on the interweb pointed me to this remarkably sturdy yet cheap and easy wood storage rack concept. I used scrap wood from around camp and two (then three) cinder blocks to create the rack. It will keep the wood up off the ground so it stays dry, stacked and ready to fire up!

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Whoa the wood keeps multiplying! One day of splitting turned to two but talk about instant gratification!

A quick break to see us committing wholesale genocide on an ant civilization. (Sound off, it’s just the log splitter roaring in the background.) I had a lot of surprises while splitting open logs (mostly grubs, beetles and ants) but these guys were next level. They immediately began ejecting their eggs and trying to save each other…it was crazy! Sorry fellas.

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Oh just me in lumberjack mode.

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The finished product. One tree sure yields a lot of wood! That stack is roughly six feet high by eight feet wide. Plus the mini stack in front and another bin full of wood a little further away. Lots of fun campfires in our future!

And now…a grasshopper:

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Wintery Camp

Last week I had a chance to spend some time up at camp. It was blanketed in snow…as expected in February in NH!

It was a beautiful bluebird day at the lake and I started by doing my rounds of the buildings and making sure everything was OK. This has been a super mild winter so far with not much snow but enough to look nice!

The cabins were all in great shape. As I finished checking on everything I grabbed the below shot from the porch on cabin 5. You can see the frozen lake beyond the trees.

With a bit of time to spare I decided to run up Mt. Molly (the mountain that many of our campers have climbed with us to take in views of Merrymeeting Lake).

The path up was mostly untouched so we (Tuckerman and I) had to break the trail. Once up top it was limitless views and lots of sunshine.

On the way out I stopped for a quick shot in front of the clubhouse.

Views for days.

It’s always fun to get outside!

-Evan

2020 boats!

Our 2019 were barely broken in but they are a distant memory now as our new 2020 boats are on order! The MasterCraft NXT22 has been our favorite camp boat since 2016 and the amazing people over at MasterCraft have redesigned it from the hull up! It has a more powerful engine, more aggressive hull styling, updated seating layout and new surf technology! Check out our colors below…we hope you like them!

it's been a while!

Yikes! We have not posted since early May! We had such a busy, awesome season at the lake there just has not been time to sit down at the computer and type anything. The summer is winding down, though, so we can refocus some attention towards our neglected blog!

Last week I had an hour to kill so Tuckerman and I ran up Mt. Molly to take in the view of the lake. No foliage yet which means summer is still in full effect!

These late summer days are pretty awesome here at Merrymeeting. The end of the season is also a bit bittersweet as we say farewell to our barely used boats.

After camp we were booked solid with private lessons but both boats were sold early in September so the fun had to end. The Black NXT22 (Betty) went with its new family down the road to Rochester, NH while the blue NXT22 (Fred) is currently traveling across the country to Bend, OR! I gave both boats a full detail, oil change and topped off the gas for the new owners before they rolled out of the driveway.

On Fred’s last day at camp (Monday, September 26) we had a beautiful sunrise and calm water. That steam coming off of the lake is really just the nice warm water turning cold (although as of yesterday, September 21, the lake was still in the high 60’s!).

Just because the campers are gone does not mean there are no kids having fun at Water Monkey!

Finn and Kai have been taking full advantage of the entire property. The beach is now their private play zone and the upper property is a giant driving course for their Raptor PowerWheels!

That is it for now. As always you should follow our Instagram account (@watermonkeycamp) for more consistent posts. Coming in the next couple of weeks will be our season recap!

Get out and have some fun!

-Evan

april showers bring...may showers

As hard as I try I cannot control the weather. In the summer I wish I could snap my fingers and make the wind disappear on the lake. Come winter I would like to dance a jig and get a few feet a powder. Every fall…well fall in NH is pretty perfect. This spring, though, I have definitely been trying to will the rain away but have had no luck yet. It is great for our trees, grass and the health of the lake but is really delaying our landscaping, painting and outdoor work at camp (and keeping mountain biking trails too wet to ride).

These shots are typical of the weather lately. The lake is super high (and a wee bit chilly still). Up at the cabins I was on the roof blowing leaves and pine needles away and snapped this shot just before the sky opened up on me.

The bottom line is that, according to our instagram poll yesterday, 72% of you say the sun will make an appearance again someday and that is good enough for me!

See you outside!