Whippoorwill what?

 We rejoin our plucky heroes at the end of May, when it finally seems warm and safe enough to go back out to the woods.

The world no longer makes sense, the US has abandoned all pretense of being a functional country, and not being in the city sure seems pleasant right now.

At this point in our grand adventure, things are looking lush, and beautiful, and we're starting to haul some building supplies out to the forest.  We haven't yet built anything, but my parents contributed the use of their UTV to us, and things were starting to look downright civilized:

See how green and lush everything is, and how there's hammocks and tarps and a pile of lumber? It looks like a fun time, doesn't it?

It was, until it turns out that whippoorwill winter is a thing, and wants to hurt you.

For those of you who don't live in an area where this occurs, it turns out that in late May, winter comes at you like the Kool-Aid Man, shoulder checks you into a wall, and reminds you that Mother Nature is bigger, stronger, and scarier than you will ever hope to be.

You go from a very pleasant evening filled with the sound of crickets and songbirds as you relax in a warm hammock to huddled around your firepit wearing every shred of clothing you can find and every blanket you brought with you, desperately stoking the fire and literally clutching hot rocks to keep your fingers from freezing solid.

We're gonna go ahead and call this lesson "hard won".  Also, it turns out that sometimes when you're hypothermic, you'll "fall asleep" for an hour or so at a time, interspersed with just enough semi-consciousness to keep a fire going. Thanks biology! I'm not saying we definitely suffered brain damage during this experience, but I don't look forward to some future CAT scan where they go "and this lesion is your camping trip from May of 2020."