Tag: Glamping

Worst Weekend EVER!

Posted on by Melisa

This has been THE most horrible weekend ever.  I don’t know if I jinked it by going in and knowing that I didn’t like one of the owners of the campground. I also figured out I am NOT a theme camper, group BBQ sort like last night where the food is catered in (I enjoy a group BBQ if we did it potluck style so I can be sure the food won’t make me ill), Hawaiian theme, limbo, or a sit around in a big group and watch movies and eat Jiffy Pop popcorn drenched in soybean oil kind of gal. (the movie would have been great had I been able to relax, but with trying to get everything done it just did not work out.)

2 out of 3 meals that they had set up I ate 2 and got sick throwing up both times.  I was fine with food that I brought so in the future will stick to food I know is free from the things I am allergic to.  So yes I did pass on the spam and green chili breakfast this morning as prepared meal number three as the other two had me throwing up.  Frankly spam and green chili burritos had me throwing up at just the idea of it. ewwwww!!

I was guilted at least once or twice about not being at scheduled events ect, and frankly I am not a child and had more pressing things to consider.  Like getting my VW bug back from the mechanic and giving him his truck back as he is on vacation all next week.  Locked myself out of my bug on Thurs then later that afternoon the bug died and had to be towed with the Great Pyr that I had just picked up for the dog parlor.  I didn’t get the packing and such done on Friday.  It was too much and too overwhelming and I could hardly walk on Friday night as my body just quit on me. I either pulled apart the wiring that Charlie had done and broke it or he didn’t design it to come apart.  I can’t remember as that was over three weeks ago.  I had to fix it with a borrowed set of pliers and my teeth.

Note to self: unplug the damm thing from the running car before you touch the bare wires and shock yourself on the ground between the trailer and Land Rover.

I had to spend about an hour and a half fixing it which meant at 7pm for the meet and greet I ran back up the mountain to get the mechanics truck and met him back at the campground to get my Bug.  I had to try to set up my camp site a bit and get the power sorted so I had the fridge and could get my cold stuff out of the cold box before it got horrible.  That was why I got to the meet and greet about 1.5 hrs later after I was told that they had introduced me already and were waiting for me.  When I got over there and no one spoke to me, it was as if I didn’t exist so I have no idea what all that hoopla was about.  And that general thing with me being more separate and most pretending I was not there, was the way the rest of the entire weekend went.  I said forget it and went back to finish setting up.  I really felt it was more critical to get power and lights before dark.

After I went back to my trailer I was seriously not feeling well and sat for a bit doing FaceBook to only realize about an hour later that I had better get moving back up the ranch to check on everyone or I was going to set up and not be able to walk.  I had been feeling more and more sick during that time.  Then on the road, half way to the ranch, realized I was going to be sick again. I couldn’t sleep that entire night even with pain killers as I was too tired and just in too much pain.  I woke up Saturday more tired than I had been before bed.

Went to the ranch to do chores, shower, and change and didn’t make it to the open house tour from 10-2 until about 11:30 am.  I got:  finally, we were waiting, it was locked, we wanted to see, etc from loads of folks as I was trying to unload the car and get the dog out before she baked in the Bug.  They had me in a spot shared with a 15 ft Terry Rambler where our doors faced SOUTH.  I backed in the trailer and with the wind could not be outside to spin so that entire plan for the weekend was ruined. At least I had my crochet with me and started on a free form circle poncho with matching mobius.

Note to self:  get one of those cool trailer door things that lets you latch the door back on the trailer so it doesn’t smack you in the shoulder and head and leave bruises.

The wind was brutal.  I never put up any shade tents or they would have gone the way of Glen and Sharon’s red tent!!  The spot that they put the two of us in..both shiny aluminum and no awnings…..was the worst spot in the entire trailer park.  It was near 100 degrees F and the pool was empty unless you count the sludge. They decided to drain it and started to fill it after cleaning it the afternoon of all this heat. A side note, I did back my own trailer in and was only about 1.5 ft between her front tongue and my back bumper…..AND I was straight.  Not bad for first time ever right?

I went to the BBQ on Saturday night and got sick from the food again.  So I went home to check on everything as I had this weird feeling I would get home and find Glenda, the mama llama, dead along with the baby.  She was alive and had NOT delivered.  I checked.  Repeatedly!  I did find my 2 year old Siamese Cat dead in the barn as she had had difficulty with her kittens and died.   I wondered if that was why I was so agitated.  After taking care of Beta, RIP, I went back to the campground.  I was so tempted to just say screw this and stay home.  I had set up my bed and had on PJs before leaving so I just fell into bed.  I did sleep better, but still not the best.  I set my alarm for 7:30 am with the intention of packing up and getting out of Dodge.  A car alarm went off in the park at 6:30 am so I packed up, loaded everything, backed up and hooked on, slit my finger open somehow in it all and bled all over the hitch and wires.  But I was on the road and out of there still by 8:13 am.

I got home to the real drama.  Glenda had her baby cria at 2:30 am.  She did NOT read the llama instruction manual!!!  I had to watch over 20 hours on 2 different cameras in fast forward to find out when and what happened.  The 2 main Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGD)  have been in and out the pens at different times with the llama girls.  The main LGD interferes with the mothers and babies and I end up with a scared mom that rejects the baby, a bottle baby that thinks he is a Great Pyr Dog, and a very unhappy Melisa.  That main LGD had been benched out of the pen with the llamas for 4 weeks in anticipation of Glenda’s and Icy’s big day. The one remaining LGD is a perimeter guard and doesn’t do the close personal protection that the other LGD does.  I suspect that he may have never done this before but he must have watched the older dog as he scared the mom off the cria about 30 seconds after she had the baby, picked up the baby and removed it from her, chased her and all the others from the pen and laid down about 5 feet from the baby to guard it all night long.  This all took about 3.5 minutes and it was done and she had lost her baby because the dog took it to guard it!  I know that he thought he was doing the right thing, but he was wrong. So he is not in the pen with them any longer. Now if mom and baby bond, and the dogs are NOT in there for a few days, they are totally OK and leave the mom’s alone after going back in. It seems to just be a labor and delivery issue. By the time I had finished watching enough tape to figure out what happened, the baby was 12 hours old with no colostrum.  I had to dig through my frosted up freezer to chip out some frozen goat colostrum and get it heated into a pop bottle that we had to open and pour the pop down the drain.  I  had just threw out all pop/baby bottles about 1.5 months ago  thinking I would not need them.  I am so glad I still had the rubber nipples and some of the frozen milk and colostrum.  I managed to get between 8-10 ounces in her and then she was done…full up! 

Just before this time, I had 2 friends from Canon City arrive to help.  I was so overwhelmed and feeling so poorly that I unpacked the stuff from the trailer with the help of my two friends, Liz and Biggi, from Canon City.  We put the cold stuff in the fridge and then made a HUGE pot of coffee.  It was in the middle of our coffee that Brenda arrived.  Brenda is from Florissant and has llamas herself.  She said that mom and baby are not broken bonded as mom was talking to baby and baby was sometimes responding so give them 24 hours in a pen alone and she just might kick my butt tomorrow morning.  Here is hoping..that she is bonded and the baby is nursing.  NOT that I get my butt kicked.  Ha!

I had no idea that she was coming, only that I had phoned her and told her that I had the emergency and she had tried to call back and not got me so she hopped in the SUV and came over.  How lovely.  Thank you Brenda.  And Thank you Liz and Biggi as I was beyond overwhelmed when you got here.  It was huge for you to drop things and come. Thank you so much.  Thank you all!  I can still barely breath and it is almost 7 pm and I haven’t done my daily chores for all my other animals.  They have been let out of runs, watered, pens cleaned and the llamas are totally sorted with the baby fed.  I needed to get my thoughts down, slow down, breathe, and see if I could remember who I was and what I need to do next.  I must go for now as my hand is cramping from all this typing and I am still very scattered.  Dark is coming so I have to get things finished.

PS.  when I unhooked the Scotty and took it back up to the trailer pad, I realized that although it looked like it had been on correctly, and the padlock was LOCKED, the trailer was actually NOT on the hitch correctly.  I went to jack it up on the wheel to get it up off the ball and before I had even unlocked the Master padlock or opened the hitch bit, it POPPED off the ball.  OMG, that could have happened going down the road back up the mountain or on the bouncy ranch road.  Must have had a really heavy Angel sitting on the roof of the Scotty holding it down on the hitch.  I did have my two chains on and crisscrossed but it would have damaged the Scotty.  When I did get back to the ranch, I didn’t get turned correctly and ended up almost jack knifing it.  I had to power over the dirt pile with the Land Rover and will have to have Charlie look at the bottom of the Scotty in the dropped floor to make certain it is OK and not hurt.  I think it is fine but just want him to double check. There was NO other way around it as I could not get straightened up or back up and when I tried to fix it the jack knife only got worse.  That would have finished me off this weekend if I would have ruined the Scotty.

I am going to post this and go walk a few dogs to clear my head!!!

I thought I would never say this, but I am so looking forward to MONDAY!!!

1960 Serro Scotty Sportsman Senior

Posted on by Melisa

We just bought a Serro Scotty Sportsman Senior.  13 ft total, with a 10 ft cabin.  It has lovingly been rebuilt by Glen and Sharon Lockmon.  As they move on to a new chapter in their lives, we have purchased the little canned ham to begin our new chapter.

Serro Scotty with our Land Rover

Here it is just newly arrived home with Abbey checking it out.  She calls my VW bug a “tuna can”  so I was explaining to her that this was a “canned ham”.

I did not expect to buy this trailer as I did not even know it was for sale.  I had seen the trailer in photos of a vintage trailer rally and knew they were from Colorado.  My research had led me to know that I wanted a 10-14 ft trailer, canned ham shape of extreme round, preferred an aluminum skin, and wanted a front table with a back bed, and proper wood interior not that fake crap.  That was what their trailer was so I called them just to talk about the trailer and their experiences on a local level, rebuilding it and being in a small trailer with two people.

In the course of the conversation, Glen asked me if I was looking to buy a trailer and I said yes but the right one had not presented itself yet.  He then surprised both his wife and myself by saying that he had decided 2-3 days prior to sell their trailer.  I was stunned as I had decided 2-3 days prior to let go of every last one of my French Angora rabbits to give me more freedom to travel.  (It was a heart wrenching decision I agonized over for months.)  The llamas you can throw extra hay and water to and turn out in the pasture.  The dogs can have food given to them by the neighbor and we can put out extra food and water for the chickens and cats so we can start going on short trips.  Eventually we will have even less animals and Charlie will be retired and then we can go for longer periods of time.

Coincidence?  I think not.  It was meant to be.  I am a total wood snob.  Hector Morrison, Charlie’s Da, was a wood joiner and has made me many gorgeous stunning wood pieces over the years.

Hector's Fruit Bowl

Including a custom made piano bench, upholstered and with a custom storage space for my music when he learned that my 1940’s Marshall and Rose English Grand Piano did not have a bench.

Hector's Piano Bench prior to staining to match piano

Since I am so tall,  I also have a matching set of wooden coasters that raise my piano up and protect the hardwood floors so I can get under it with my giraffe legs.  Now that is special.  Those darn coasters mean more than just about anything he ever made.  Silly?  They were always really special to me and now that he passed away 2 months ago, I will cherish them even more.  They are stained to match my mahogany piano as well as the piano bench.

Half Landing, Staircase, Bathroom at Clevedon

So how did we get from trailer to piano in such a short leap?  well it is the wood.  Mahogany piano, wood turned pieces, and stunning wooden interior of the Scotty trailer.  Glen finished the walls in Birch, the Ceiling in Mahogany and the ribs in Maple.  Then he only coated them in clear so you can see the beauty of the wood.  I adore the wood grain and hate it when someone paints over wood.

Interior shot of Serro Scotty

 

Our last home in Scotland before moving to Colorado, Clevedon, had the proper original wooden shutters for the big front windows in their original working condition which is extremely rare as most folks are lazy and paint them and they get stuck open.

We moved into that house about 2 months after we bought it as I had every carpet in the entire place ripped up and a professional company come in to sand and re finish all the original wood floors that had been hidden away.  Then for the next few years, Charlie and I stripped and re did all the skirting boards and trims for the windows and doors upstairs as those had all been painted.  Thank Heavens the downstairs ones were all original still.

Living room at Clevedon, with wooden surrounds and floor

The skirting boards were about 8 inches high, everywhere and it was a 2 story– 4 bedrooms, 1.5 half bath, 4 public rooms, 1 huge kitchen and a conservatory in an Edwardian Red Sandstone Town Home.  I would have had to spend numerous more years stripping wood had the downstairs been violated by paint!!!

Enjoy the photos of our home in Scotland, the interior of our new little Scotty Trailer and the beautiful bits of wood turning from Hector.  Do you now understand my love affair with wood?