It is a wonderful life

Big E and Peter Coyote are off to gather the game cameras, then will be heading off to Webster to bait and set the cameras up out there. The Webster sites are new to us this year and have taken a lot of preparations to ready them for the first week of bear season which starts next Monday. Guests will be arriving this coming weekend and then it is high gear for us for the next six weeks!!! I have been so busy and so many things have been going on with family and other things, that I feel like I'm behind schedule quite badly. However, I do love it when a plan comes together!!!

We were in Scarborough Maine at the Cabelas store this past weekend as guests and exhibitors, which was pretty much a last minute decision. I was contacted a couple weeks ago by their events coordinator to come down, set up and meet and great. We talked to a lot of people, but like most any trade show, often it is just folks who feel they have something is common, of which they do; the love of the outdoors and hunting! I don't know if it will pay off for us or not, but I did figure it couldn't hurt and to affiliate with Cabelas is definitely a good thing! I did have a phone call yesterday, but waiting for confirmation. We get lots of inquiries; thats the norm for these things. I'm certain that getting our name out there helps even if it is just someone talking. We often get the " I went hunting with so and so", or "I'm going hunting with so and so" when folks stop to talk, and thats OK too. I figure if they don't have the best experience with "so and so", that they will possibly remember that couple from the Katahdin area they talked to that seemed so nice and friendly. Two thirds of our guests each year are repeats. We have a group coming that has been hunting bear with us for six years; another couple who first came as a twenty fifth wedding anniversary event, for seven years. We have two other groups that are coming back this year for the second time, however not consecutively. So I guess that speaks for itself as well.
This is not the easiest business to be in and not one that will make one rich, however that depends on what "rich" means. If one looks at it as money, well no, but if one looks at it as a way of life, I could not be any richer. It is a wonderful life, to live in a place that has such natural beauty and to be able to do the things that you love,and meet really great people who share that appreciation. I feel blessed every time I go kayaking, with every sunset, every call of a loon and with every critter that saunters through the field, the changing of the leaves.....it just goes on and on. Would I like to be rich in a monetary manner, well who wouldn't as this world is run by the evil dollar bill. Maybe some day, but for now I'll just try to enjoy every day for the blessing it brings and be thankful that I'm alive to enjoy it. It is so true that life is not the breath we take, but the moments that take our breath away.