Bolt Hole Weather and Chores

There was a little more rain over night but the weather quacks got a third day in a row correct. While the morning started off looking a little iffy, the sun burned through the clouds and shone brightly for most of the day. There was one little boomer that past over around 2 PM but it only provided 15 minutes of rain before it hightailed it eastward.

Yeah, I burned a couple of logs in the big wood stove here at the Bolt Hole last night. The Temperature was around 45 degrees at 8 PM and with the rain all day, it felt quite cold in the cabin even with the windows all closed. Naturally, the fire soon made it too hot inside and I had to go to sleep with the door to the deck cracked open and under just the sheet. I did wake up later to pull the comforter up, however. It was barely 45 degrees when I came down to breakfast at 7 AM and it never got much above 65 even with the sunshine.

I had a curious hawk sitting on the power line over the road this morning. It kept looking at me as I looked at it. It talked quietly to it and moved slowly as it continued to sit there. I told it to stay put and got my camera out of the house and snapped some pics. It allowed me to almost walk underneath its perch before flying off. I'll post one or two of the better pictures tomorrow when I get back to the Aerie. Trying to do so here at the Bolt Hole while on dial-up would just take too long.

Needless to say, I was able to get the ATV out and move about a face cord of firewood into the attached woodshed from the stacks in the field. Ticked off a bunch of snakes too. I probably spotted 8 or 10 of the little devils. Mostly garter snakes but there was one red-bellied snake in the wood pile that I kept chasing from log to log. Every time I picked one up it was underneath. Stupid snake kept stopping just one log down and of course that was the next to be picked up. It finally ran out of room when I got to the bottom level and then it slithered off under the next pile.

There was also one larger snake sunning itself next to the garage that I only caught a glimpse of before it slithered under the raspberry bushes. It was more of a brown color and quite chubby. Certainly not a garter snake as it had no yellow stripes down its back. I failed to catch a glimpse of its head so I can't be sure that it wasn't a copperhead. (If the head is triangular or wedge shaped it's a good indication that the damn thing is poisonous.) With no idea of what it might have been I let it go its own way.

I also loaded two ATV loads onto the truck to take back to the Aerie. It's good, seasoned cherry for the most part with a little birch and red maple thrown in the mix. It will burn nicely in the fireplace come the cold winter months.

After the wood (and two big tubs of topsoil) was loaded into the truck, I got down to the business of hooking up the travel trailer for a trip down to the Aerie. PA requires all trailers over 7000 pounds be inspected annually. The 27' travel trailer weighs in at around 7500 pounds. I sent off the registration over a week ago so it should be back from PennDot soon. There's no sense making a separate trip up to get the trailer when there is room in the driveway to park it until I decide to come back up. (Early bear season in NY starts on September 13 this year so I might be back in a month.)

This will be the first time I've towed the trailer with the Tundra and I'm interested in seeing how it handles the load of wood, soil and trailer. I know that with the Silverado my MPGs went way down when I was towing.

There you have it. I'll have a little packing to do in the morning and a little cleanup after breakfast but I should be on the road by 9 or 9:30. Hopefully they will be done stoning the road, Mark said it took him close to 40 minutes to travel the last 6 miles around noon today because of the trucks, rollers, etc. Could get interesting with the trailer in tow.