I suppose that it all depends upon who you are and what you do for a living but many people here are upset by the present weather. Some showers were predicted for later in the weekend, but today was supposed to be nice! The remainder of the days were considered to be in question, but Saturday was predicted to be sunny.
Today began with clouds and light sprinkles. It has showered off and on all day, with enough to dampen even the firecracker lighters! This area does allow the use of fireworks so if weather were good we wold probably have much more noise. We really don't mind a great deal as we generally sleep through it all as long as our windows are closed and the a/c is running. One nice thing about our current location is that we are under cover and so can leave windows open, even with it raining. Present temperatures are in the mid 70's although humidity is pretty high. I love the fresh air and will sleep well tonight with windows open!
We spent yesterday visiting friends and family, today we were mostly lazy. Pam is working on completing the new draperies for the windshield, but needs some supplies. I plan to change the way that our entry door is trimmed out by doing away with the valance that was once there. That will be followed with an new curtain also, as designed by Pam!
Today we moved from our family visit to our next stop, work-camping with our friends, the Hollingsworth's. When you stay with friends, it isn't 
often that you have an RV site quite like this one, in fact, it is the only one of this sort that we have had anywhere! The RV port was built when they were full-timers and was for them to stay on when in Wichita. The idea was to provide shade in hot weather and cover in cold. At one time there were even doors that closed across the now open areas, for winter. The site has 50A power, water, sewer and even a connection to a roof top TV antenna if you bother to connect to it.
Neil and Ben will be going on a trip, starting in a few days ans we will be caring for their new lawn while they do so, as well as visiting with my sister and some other relatives in this area. We plan to stay here for a month, until we are ready to move on to Kentucky. This just demonstrates who valuable the friends one makes while living as full-timers can be!
I thought that I might write just a bit about where we are and why, as I know that some readers are not from the country as I am. It is so much more than just the peace and beauty of the area that keeps us coming back and feeling fortunate to have grown up here. The evenings and mornings are especially notable here. We look out and see the rabbits grazing on the lawn, or scurrying away as Muffie keeps them on guard and well exercised. Frequently we see deer or wild turkeys feeding in the pasture at these times as well. The turkeys now have families with them and bring the young out to feed with them. 
Even the cattle grazing near us lend to the serenity and peace that comes with time spent here. I have always enjoyed just being on the farm, but the sights are what is most easily explained. I don't know that I want to be a cowboy any longer, but I still enjoy the association with them and continue to have great respect and admiration for their way of life. Here are a few pictures that were taken just this morning from our window. I conclude that the old saying was absolutely true. "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the boy."
We have now been staying on my uncle's farm for a bit more than a week and we have really enjoyed our time here. Even Muffie is going to have some special memories of this one. She loves to keep the rabbits active by making them run a bit, although she really don't try to catch them. I think that she really thinks that they should play with her! Along with the exercising of the rabbits, Muffie has also learned a few other new things to do on the farm which she enjoys. She has always been one to enjoy a ride on most anything and here she has discovered farm wagons!
The farm is only about five miles from town, but 30 from the nearest Wal-Mart. It is located on a gravel road, about one mile from the paved Kansas highway #177. If you enjoy the country, this is the heart of America! Around us is mostly ranching, with scattered farms along the streams. Most have at least some cattle and farm for feed to supplement the grass. At this time there is some wheat being harvested, a great deal of hay being baled up for winter cattle feed and all of the usual ranch & farm work being done.
If you have not visited rural America and taken the time to meet the folks who live and work there, I suggest that all of us should do so. A more friendly society does not exist. Country music jam sessions are very common in this area with one of the best known being each Friday at Cottonwood Falls, to our south. Each Sunday there is a free music concert in the park in Council Grove where programs have ranged from country gospel to a clarinet quartet made up of university music professors from the Kansas universities. Each year in June the local folks sponsor a concert by the Kansas City Orchestra that is out under the stars on one of the local ranches. Just because the people are country, does not mean that they have no culture! Below is a view of the typical countryside in this part of Kansas.
With the lake rising, the term "dry camping" comes to mind, as in the opposite. Dry camping has long been used to describe the stop for camping that has no
water and usually is applied to no hook-ups at all. Some consider it an alternative to "boondocking" as pretty much that same thing. Well it just happens that here on Council Grove Lake, there are currently available some campsites that may offer a whole new prospective on what "wet camping" could possibly mean. The Corps have begun to let water out now and so this problem should soon go away, but for now you can stay in a site that is really close to the water!
We have now left the site at Council Grove Lake and will not be returning. We stopped by the office this morning and left off the tools that we had and since no rangers were present, we then sent an email to the volunteer coordinator, with a copy to the lead ranger to let them know that we do not feel comfortable in returning there with the population of wood-rats. We really do not like to do this, but this is just too great an expense to take any chance that it might happen again.
For the next week we are staying on my uncle's farm, dry camped, I might add, although we do have electricity from a 20A outlet which is sufficient to use one air conditioner. At the end of the month we will be returning to Wichita, where we will take advantage of the full hook-ups of our friends there and take care of their new lawn for them while they make an extended trip.
The saga of the dead motorhome has now run it's course and we have left Council Grove Lake. The repairs of the motorhome took longer than expected, so we were very glad that we did not have to stay in the motorhome at the repair shop. To make this long story short, we got our home back on Friday, after the repair became more than just the fuel pump which was not working but a repair to the wire harness that supplied power as well. It seems that one of the park's wood rat population had chosen to make a lunch of our RV wire harness. With the repair bill exceeding $1300, we have chosen not to return to the same site at the lake. Rangers tell us that it is a known problem and we have seen them even in daylight. With lake levels very high, they have been displaced from their normal homes and so we have made the decision to not share our home with them. I'll post more as the story develops, but for now we are parked at my uncle's farm and well make new plans for our July time.
Yesterday was quite a day here at the lake. On Saturday night through early Sunday morning we received some 3 1/2 inches of rain. That had been preceded 
by a week with some 5 inches total rain. The lake levels were rising pretty rapidly and because of that rangers warned us of the possibility of the need to move, should the lake get too high. Then on Sunday night it rained more with about 1 1/2 inches here and more than 3 inches in some parts of the watershed. As a result, the lake was rising at a rate of about 2 inches per hour so the decision was made that we should pack up and be prepared to move in the event that it began to be dangerous to our location. As we were nearing the point of being ready, I went to start the engine to let it idle for a time in preparation, as is a long standing habit of mine.
But starting the engine did not start! After a conference with the lead ranger it was concluded that it was dangerous to wait to find the problem so we made a call to Coach Net for assistance. At about 4 pm the wrecker arrived and by 5:30 the motorhome was off to the Ford truck shop in Manhattan. While we could have gone along and stayed in the motorhome on the lot of the shop, we chose to stay with my uncle at his home about ten miles from our site on the lake. This afternoon I received a call from the shop and the problem is that our fuel pump failed. He commented that we were lucky to have gotten parked before it failed. The new pump will be in tomorrow and by Thursday we should have our home back again and return to the lake. I suppose that one should be thankful that in more than ten years on the road, this has been our first towing experience. We were very impressed by the wrecker operator and by the promptness of the services. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a picture of our coach as the truck took it away.
On Saturday, we attended the Prairie Life Arts Festival in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. This tiny town is the county seat of Chase county and has a great deal of history. It is located adjacent to the town of Strong City and the two are the heart of some of Kansas' best farm and ranch country. Ranching is still a big business here. The festival specializes in the arts and crafts of the early settlers in the Flint Hills, both Anglo and native. This was home to the 
Kanza and the Osage tribes before settlers arrived from the east.
We visit a great many gatherings of arts and of old fashioned craft practitioners, and while many of them are far larger than this one, we have never enjoyed one any more. The most unique part of this gathering is that most craftsmen are in an education mode and with a smaller crowd than would be found in more populated areas, they are able to spend more time with each interested visitor and to explain much more about their craft and the history of it. If you want to lean how and why the old crafts were done, this is an excellent place to do so. Most of the craft booths were truly fascinating, there were two that stood out, even in this setting. In all of the many 
such shows that we have attended, never once have we seen the construction of a self-supporting arch from native rocks with no mortar of any kind. The young man was absolutely amazing. The arch in this picture will weigh about 6000# when complete. Late in the afternoon, he removed the wood form from under the arch and it stood as strong as if it had mortar.
The other activity which was equally as impressive to us was the Native American dancer who performed as a part of the festival. Dennis Rogers, otherwise known as Spirit Dancer was not only an amazingly talented dancer, but he also teaches the history of what he does, the reasons for the dancing and far more information than we have ever seen shared at such a performance. Mr. Rogers is a teacher by profession and travels to do dance programs in the summers. His teaching skills are very apparent to all who view his program and everyone for grandma to the youngest children were completely enthralled!
The hoop dance was what he performed for us and before the dance began he took the time to show each of the figures that he was to perform and to explain that they represent something from nature. Each dancer develops his own set of figures, using some that are standard to other hoop dancers and others that are unique to that particular dancer. Mr. Rogers has even added a few special figures to entertain children from other cultures. Once he has showed each figure and how it will be made, he then encourages the observers, especially the children, to shout out the name of each figure as he creates it while dancing. It is a show that is not to be missed!