First Week in the Woods

It is only 9 pm and already its been dark for three hours ... it's only October 7th. Doing some quick estimating, I figure we ought to be in the dark by about 4pm come December 21st! So, if we are unfortunate enough to lose power, which according to a former neighbor occurs on a somewhat regular basis - sometimes for upwards of a week, we will need to stock much more than the 9 candles that I currently have on hand! And, if we don't get a generator installed soon, once the lake freezes we will also have to start storing extra water in the basement because no electricity = no well pump = awfully smelly bathrooms after a day or two ... unless of course we borrow the Rosenblatts' back house. So, I started the shopping list yesterday (imagine that) and already it is two pages long. I am hoping to leave the woods this weekend to find a real store (Walmart) to start my stockpile. Fortunately gas prices have dropped a bit so the 200 mile round trip to civilization won't cost me an arm and a leg.

Of course the kids and I will have to finish stacking the wood ... 4 cords of it (that's 8' x 4' x 4' times 4) before we go. We've managed to get half of it piled up so far ... sans wheelbarrow. Paul was here this past weekend, all the way from Croatia, to make sure we didn't set the house on fire starting up the new woodstove. This kept him quite busy as he seemed to have no time for actually stacking wood. We managed to get the temperature in the house up to a sweltering 73 F (that's about 21 C for those of you on the other side of the ocean). Not bad since it was only in the mid 40's F (7 C) outside ... that was the high for the day, not the low.

Not too cold for the wildlife to be out and about though. We have two deer who have been feasting on our lawn (actually it's clover ... that way I don't have to mow it) two mornings this past week. This morning when I left to drive Garrick to the bus stop ... yes Gina, I have been driving him ... I walked outside to get into the truck and they just looked at me and barely moved. On the way to Caroline's soccer practice we saw a proud partridge with his tail feathers fanned out and his crown fluffed up showing off for the ladies. And, we saw our second bull moose. He wasn't quite as big as the one we saw yesterday ... complete with a four foot long dewlap (beard) that dangled as he ran next to the truck. But the crown jewel was this afternoon at 5:15pm ... as I was talking to Paul (now back in Croatia) I looked out the window and saw a black head. It was attached to a very big bear; he too was enjoying the clover in the yard. He was literally 10 feet off our front porch stuffing his face. He stayed for about 15 minutes during which time we shot several photos. When he departed, he walked right past the front porch steps, past one of those oh so lovely woodpiles, and meandered through the woods to another neighbor's lawn. I suspect that when he finds that they don't have clover in their lawn, he will be back for another visit. I only hope that we will be lucky enough to again be inside!


Karyn