Beautiful things,

Since I did 5 beautiful things a couple of days ago, I "get to do" one today.

A feeling of accomplishment, when the laundry is done and clothes put away, the groceries shopping is done and put away, and the dishes are done and the dishwasher is empty.

My version of 3 (actually 5) Beautiful things.

Checking a blog and finding pictures of the great nephew and niece in the Halloween costumes

Yards covered with a golden carpet of leaves, glowing with sunlight on my way to work.

Seeing black cows scattered across the multicolored field

Walking across the parking lot and seeing the golden leaved trees framing the gray church steeple against an iron gray sky background.

Spending election night with friends and co-workers and celebrating together after winning a hard fought battle.

Yeah - the millage passed

I don't think I ever wrote about this, I don't know why.

Jackson District Library had millage proposal on the ballot yesterday. The library was asking for .4 mills. This was for operations only. To keep the lights on and the doors open in all of the branches.

16 months ago, asking for .8 mills to expand and improve all of the branches. Most of the library buildings were never meant to be libraries, with increased usage and demand for more technology they really need more room and improvments. They had focus groups and questionnaires and thougth it would pass. It was defeated 2:1 6o% no to 40% yes.

The library got a 1 mill when they became a district library 30 years ago. It was renewed 10 years ago. But with the Headley amendment and tax captures for businesses, decrease in state aid and a decrease in penal fines. The library has spent most of it's savings and within 3 years will have a $1,000,000 deficit.

They decided they had to ask for an increase. Without it they would have to re-evaluate the and come up with a new model of service for the population of Jackson County, which would have most likely meant closing some of the branches. I for one was not sure even this would pass, there was a lot of negative comments and the newspaper was pretty negative.

Well

It Passed 62% -38%.

We all still have jobs, and we can begin to think about other things in the library. It seems like we have been thinking about only the millage and money for ever. Actually it has been 3 years, but that is a long time

Election Day

Just want to remind everyone to

I don't care who you vote for, just vote.
If you live in Jackson County remember to vote Yes on the library millage.


I did. I looked at the clock and thought it was too early to go to the polls, so I waited until 6:45, I should have left at 6:30, there were 36 people ahead of me, some of them had been there since 6:30. When I left, the line was back and forth covering the whole area of the township hall.

Late Fall Camping

Charlie and I went camping this week-end, Since we bought the camper in August, we have only had a chance to use it once so we decide to try it this week-end the latest we have ever camped. I checked with DNR and Bruin Lake State park is open until November 30, so off we went, I rather short notice although we had talked about it for several weeks.
The address for Bruin Lake is Gregory, but it is about a mile (by road) to Unadilla (I love that name, the way it sounds.)

The weather was great, a little windy on Sunday morning, and the rain held off until we were all packed up and pulling out of the campground.

We have been to Bruin Lake before, several times but we figured out that it has been at least 10 or 11 years since we were there last. We usually go there when we want to take someone novice canoeing because it is not far from the Huron River, a great beginner canoeing river.

Charlie went over on Friday afternoon and had things set up by the time I got there after work, and stopping to pick up a few groceries. Only one little glitch, he was backing the trailer in the site, make sure not to hit the fire pit and hit a tree. Not a lot of damage to the trailer but...

We also realized during our conversations that this was the very first time we have ever gone camping alone, just the two of us. some.

Fall is a great time to go camping, there is hardly anyone at the parks. Bruin Lake has 186 sites, and we counted 20 sites being used. Don't tell anybody, they might decide to try it, then it wouldn't be as nice because it would be too crowded.

Oh, the restrooms were closed for the season, but they did have an porta-john and we had the bathroom in the camper.

We ran into some people who said they had been camping for 3 weeks, there were two couples left, for this there last weekend. They had up to 7 families there at one point during the 3 weeks. They said they have been doing this for the last 10 years.

We went for a ride on Saturday, and found a horse riders campground. it was packed with trailers and horse people of all ages. Charlie had heard there was one in the area, and was checking it out for some of the kids he will be working with this year. He is going to be the horse 4-H leader, more on that in another post.

When we go camping, Charlie does most of the cooking over the camp fire. On Saturday night it was beef stew, it tasted great.

There are not a lot of trails but Charlie and the dog managed to find a few, they even walked to Undilla Sunday morning, about 5 miles cross country, on the trails and down a little private road.

We had a some nice campfires, I had to take a picture of this piece of wood, it looked a little strange. That is all one piece of wood See the picture below on the right.

We have talked about camping at least once a month, trying a different camp ground, each time, I was thinking April -October, but I found out that there are 10 state parks that are open year round. We are thinking about going sometime this winter, Anybody interested?