Summer of 2008

Well, we were able to get up to camp a few times over the summer. This summer's weather was ablsolutely gorgeous. Very few days saw the temperature get above 90. We just spent a weekend in Cedar Run and the daytime temperatures were in the 70's each day. Everything at camp is ok. Over 30 cabins have been broken into this summer. However, the only problem that we have had this summer is porcupines. Yes, the porcupines are chewing everything they can get their teeth on. We've had to replace entire sections of decking, and railing. This past week we realized that we never had this problem when we were allowed to keep a salt lick at the camp. We now think they are chewing the wood to get the sodium that is in the treated lumber.

I'm looking forward to getting up to camp at least once in the fall to hunt turkeys. There are a lot of them around this summer. We have seen very few deer, but the deer we have seen have been nice sized and appear to be very healthy. We've seen several groups of fawns. Bears seem to be everywhere and many times these days seem to outnumber the deer.

You can hardly tell where the Bull Run fire went through except for the burned out laurel in some places. It's amazing how the ferns have come up and the trees have opened as if the fire was never there. It will be interesting to see if the burned out areas will change the movement of the deer this fall.