I've been on the phone with Mark and we've sorta, kinda worked out a plan to stop the bleeding at the Bolt Hole. He gave me a list of things to purchase to shore up the beams in the basement and has contacted a few guys to advise and even help with the task. He's still helping out some guys on other projects for which he is being paid but will be meeting me this weekend to get started.
I'll be heading up to the Bolt Hole Thursday morning with the utility trailer in tow and shopping list in hand.
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As luck would have it--and this is the good kind of "luck"--the heat wave we have been experiencing has shown cracks and may tumble completely in a day or two. We had some massive T-storms move through the area yesterday afternoon and evening that sent the temperature plummeting 10-15 degrees in a few hours as we went from a high of 83-84 degrees at 4 PM to 69 degrees at 10 PM at the Aerie. The storms just skirted us to the north and south, however and we got "just" 0.41 inches of rain from them. Today's humidity remains quite high and the temperature may still reach 80 degrees but over the next week the highs will drop to the mid 70s while the night time lows may reach down into the 40s by the middle of next week.
Hurricane Bill's trip up the eastern seaboard will pull the cooler air down from Canada but it's power should, according to accu-hunch, remain well east of both the Aerie and the Bolt Hole.
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The cats let us sleep in a little this morning. They didn't start their wake-up call until 6:30 AM. As Terry threw on her robe and went down to feed them and to open the sliding door on the porch, she caught sight of a black bear walking across the lawn. Before she could get me to the window, it had slipped into the woods and out of sight.
I checked the veggie garden to see if that was a stopping point but there appears to have been no damage done to the beds. Perhaps it was just walking through or perhaps it doesn't like string beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes. With no bird feeders out, that's the only food source in the yard aside from the compost pile which holds some vegetable matter and watermelon rinds...and even that seems to have been untouched.
3 comments:
We caught that storm here to the north, left a mess of limbs in the yard. Do you see bears very often?
bears are regular visitors here at the Aerie. We've got 17 acres of woods and aren't too far from many, many wooded acres of state land. They like our sunflower seeds and the hummingbirds' sugar water in the spring and fall so we have to bring the feeders in at dusk during those seasons. After Halloween, as the bear season in mid-November approaches, we haven't seen any bears though. Smart devils that they are. Sorta like the turkeys in the spring who come to the bird feeders almost every day---until the season starts.
Your black bear was the best kind: "bashful." May they all run away at your approach.
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