Electricity restored. (NY)Yard Mowed. (PA) Weather: Wet--again

Yeah! Blogger is back! (After 20+ hours of being bye-bye. Went down for maintenance and--as with a old car or an old home--they found more that had to be fixed.)

So, where was I.... Oh, yeah. Electricity at the Bolt Hole. Finished. Took me a couple of trips to the hardware store to get light fixtures to replace a couple of very, very old ones and I had to cut three holes in the sheetrock in the bedroom ceiling, but I found that junction box, ran the new wire to the basement, installed the new light fixtures, and made the new connections in the circuit board. And everything works! Next, I'll have to fix those holes in the sheetrock. It's always something.

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I woke up this morning to the sound of birds and rain on the tin roof at 4:15 AM. After a half hour I figured what the hey and went down to have a cup of coffee and a couple of donuts (and discovered Blogger was still down). I could read blogs, but still couldn't post on this one or comments to anyone's. Worse, it seemed they couldn't post either so there wasn't anything new to read...except for Facebook.

Not in the mood for more than a quick check in with a few friends, I shut down the computer and did some real live housework. A lot of vacuuming a little dishwashing, and packing up some garbage to go. I'll still eventually need to do a lot of dusting and drag out the mop and really scrub the floor, but the place looks somewhat cleaner. By 10 AM the Tundra was packed and I was on the road home.

Although it was still drizzling when I left, by the time I got to Utica and jumped on the NYS Thruway, it had stopped. By the time I got to Syracuse, I had to put my sunglasses on. Turned out to be a nice ride home. I even stopped in the parking lot of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge to stretch my legs eat my lunch and still made it home in a little over 4 1/2 hours. And, by not going more than the speed limit, I managed 19.3 mpg in the Tundra. The same as what I got going up. It was only those pesky trips to the hardware store and for groceries that dropped my mpg rating. :-(

Entering PA I couldn't help but notice the mountains of the Northern Tier had a distinctly hazy appearance. Looked down right Smokey Mountain-ish. I'm guessing that the high humidity and bursting tree buds (almost everything except the locusts seem to have come into leaf) have saturated the air so, despite the steady breeze blowing from the south there's a humid haze over the land. Radio forecast says a 40% chance of rain tonight with probability getting closer to certainty after 2 PM Saturday afternoon. You can feel it in the air.

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Arriving at the Aerie, I took the opportunity to get out the lawn mower and cut the grass/feed the black flies. Actually, it was more "cut the dandelions." The "lawn" was a sea of yellow. Not as bad as some of the fields/vineyards I passed on the way home, but still quite yellow. Now, I like yellow. It's the color of Terry's Aveo. But on a lawn, it looks somehow out of place. Short of spraying the whole bloody yard with Round Up (or getting a couple of goats), however, I don't reckon we'll ever be rid of the pesky dandelions.

I was helped in getting the lawn mowed by the presence of another pest: the black fly. Kept me moving right along, they did. Yes sir! Always looking to keep moving and face into the wind, that's me! Didn't work, though. I still got chewed on. But I did get the lawn done in record time!

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Tomorrow we have another bird walk at Colton Point SP. With the trees now in leaf, there's a good chance of seeing (or at least "hearing") lots of warblers. After, the Tiadaghton Audubon Society is having its annual picnic over at Hills Creek SP. At least that will be under a pavilion, which, given the weather forecast, is a good thing.

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Speaking of the forecast: I just checked the weather.com page and there's a line of sever T-storms in Potter County ("God's Country") and on the western edge of Tioga County slowly heading this way. We're on the eastern edge of Tioga and they may just slip to the north of us. Even so, we will get rain. The 10-day forecast shows showers Every. Single. Day. Sure, some days they say only a 40% probability, but that's not too comforting. Ask any pitcher who faced Ted Williams when he hit .400 for the Red Sox.