Friday, July 11, 2008

A little rain delay...

...on the yard work today. First I put off going out because of the threat of showers (which didn't arrive when predicted). Then I went for a walk about with Mark as we looked for deer sign and scouted out a few blow downs. Of course, while we were out in the woods, the showers DID arrive. They were light at first and that gave us enough time to retreat to the Bolt Hole and Mark went to make some business phone calls while I had a sandwich for lunch. We planned to go fish behind his place in a half hour but that's when the sky opened for real.

We canceled our planned outing and I relaxed for a while. The rain stopped and an hour or so later the brush was dry enough to get the hog out again for a two hour workout.

While I was working, Mark went to scout out the woods behind his place and wet a line in the creek. Shortly after I finished he showed up with stories of having caught a couple of native trout all in the 8-9 inch range. He also had the memory cards from two cameras on his side that showed Momma bear and the twins had visited both the camera on my side of the road AND the camera on his side. They started by me and within 5 minutes of leaving here were at his camera. Then they came back to my camera again. I'd swear Momma had a big grin on her face in one of the shots. She has better control over those two cubs than some ladies in Wally World have over their kids if they made the trip from my camera to Mark's in five minutes--they are about a quarter mile apart as the raven flies. And you KNOW those two little cubs are curiouser than a pair of kittens. But when Mom says move I guess they know better than to question "Why? and just do what she tells them to pronto. After all, who wants to get swatted upside the head by a 300 pound Momma! They don't have the bear equivalent of Family Services to complain to out in the woods.

Anyway, the work with the brush hog is essentially done for now. Tomorrow looks to be considerably warmer. (That means it might get up to a sunny 76 degrees as today never got much above 65 with no sun at all.) Under those conditions, I'll be heading into the woods with the chainsaw where I can work in the shade. If I can find any blow downs without leaves. The ones we saw today still had enough soil around the root balls that they were producing leaves. Five good sized maples that would be perfect firewood but will need a year to season. As we have plenty already in the yard for this winter, I'd rather let these go until next summer since they are alive.

Worse comes to worse, I search out some "widow makers" (trees that are dead but hung up on others) and do my best to drop them to the ground.

Meanwhile, I'll head over to Mets game on the computer. It's currently 1-1 in the seventh but Oliver Perez is in trouble. He's been good up 'til know giving up only the one run on a homer to Brad Hawpe (who also just singled--the only two hits the Rockies have tonight). And as I say that Perez is coming out of the game 7 K, 6 BB 1 Run (so far--there are two on and no outs) in six innings.

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