At the Bolt Hole

I enjoyed a nice leisurely ride up to the Bolt Hole this morning (after dumping yet another 0.25 inches of rain out of the Aerie's rain gauge). The sun was shinning and the air was cool when I arrived. It's supposed to get even cooler yet we'll have thunderstorms and possibly hail tonight and tomorrow.

As soon as I pulled into the yard and unloaded the truck, I got the lawn mower going and cut the grass. It was a good 8 inches high in some spots and that forced me to go slow. I kept my eye on the critters in that thick stuff and noticed lots of black crickets but no grasshoppers. Last year it was just the opposite, there were grasshoppers all over the place. There were also three garter snakes, a couple of toads, a wood frog, a leopard frog and one dead bullfrog at the entrance to a burrow under the back of the garage. Lots of cedar waxwings flitted around the yard as the honeysuckle are loaded with red berries and the cherry trees are also full of fruit. There were two hummingbirds going after the phlox in the garden as well as the spiders in the spiderwebs round about. Dragonflies cruised the air above the lawn and picked off the deer flies and occasional black fly. I came across several balls of grass that were probably home to voles, but they were all empty wen I ran over them.

It took me just over three hours to finish the cutting at which time I went inside to fix dinner and turned on the TV just in time to see the Angles rack up an 8 spot on the Yankees to win 11-4. One thing that Tim McGarver said that was amazing was that the home run Vladimir Guerrero hit to start the big rally was his 105th home run on the first pitch. Now Vlad has hit a lot of home runs but still...to hit 105 on the first pitch thrown to him in a plate appearance is astounding.

Well, if the weather quacks have got this forecast correct (I know, what are the odds?), I should have an easy day of it tomorrow. It will be too wet to be shuttling wood from the pile to the storage shed and too wet to go walk in the woods. Sounds like a day for naps, crossword puzzles and maybe a little Olympic action.