Closed for the Season

On Friday, our granddaughter left for her aunt and uncle's house to spend a few days before she's driven home to her Mom and sister in NY. Just after waving our goodbyes, we closed the door to Camp Waygood and closed down for the season.

Having Rebecca here for a month was good for so many reasons. She celebrated her twelfth birthday earlier in the year, and because she was a little older, things were a little easier for us. She was a big help to us when our backs were in pain during the last two weeks, and willingly did some of the things that we were having trouble with like getting to the phone before the machine picked up. Becca is a good girl and a good worker if she's doing things  she enjoys.  She arrived too late to plant the garden,but she enjoyed checking the plants for things to pick. She was careful not step on the vines of the squashes, and gentle about lifting leaves and picking tomatoes. She was excited about the cucumbers, as she loves to eat those, and when our corn was ripe, she was thrilled to shuck it for supper. She was faithful to put water in the birdbath, and to give the plants a drink when they looked thirsty.

Becca likes to work in the kitchen...not so fond of the cleaning up (who is?) but she  certainly enjoys creating things to eat.  She was attentive when we made pickles together, and enjoyed eating them. She loves to bake,and we were treated to her offerings of Supreme Bars,which she made twice, all on her own.  She also made white bread, three loaves of braided yeast bread, which was delicious! I think she will meet her hoped-for occupation as an adult baker!

My granddaughter has a bit of my DNA, the artistic bit. She wanted to spend much time in the sunroom, where we crafted for hours. If she wasn't painting canvases or watercolor paper, she was snipping,cropping, taping,framing and begging for more photos to put in her scrapbook. She's learning to exercise her freedoms of  page 'decor' and placing photos in unusual positions on the papers,rather than equally spaced in rows. We shared laughter and stories and special time together.
We took her to a nearby orchard where there are goats to  feed and gems to mine. It was a favorite spot when she and her sister visited a few years ago, and she requested a return visit there.

Though the old people in this house were slowed down during her last days with us, and we were unable to take her camping for the weekend or fishing at the catfish pond, she understood, and had no complaint.We'll save that for another time, which I hope will come for us in the future. I fear those visits will be fewer as she grows older. She will probably want to get a summer job in a year or so, as her fifteen year old sister did this year. I hate knowing this might have been our last summer visit from Becca, but I hope that whatever memories  we made will stay with  each of us for the rest of our lives.

There are two younger grandchildren who may end up being future campers at Camp Waygood. If not, there may come a time when I'll open that long-awaited 'sleep-away camp for Moms"!