Bogieblog

Bear in the Woods

Wednesday morning, while in the kitchen making my lunch (for work) and deciding if I wanted to ride to work in the rain, I heard some skittering on the deck. All the cats were out, so I figured Tory and Fuzzy were having a minor tiff and I ignored it. Then I heard a loud BANG, and realized that it was the gate to the deck stairs hitting the railing.

“Man,” thought I, “the wind must really be howling.” I decided to check it out, as with wind that strong I definitely wasn’t going to ride. I turned on the back light and saw the gate swinging toward the rail again; this time more gently. Then it started swinging back to the closed position, then swung open again. About this time, I was about to go out and secure the latch, when I noticed fur near the top step. I figured it was Fuzzy, and I reached for the handle – then froze as a bear’s head came into view.

Dang, he (she?) was going to go for the feeders. My early warning system (the thistle feeder out at the clothes line) had been bypassed and he was going straight for the peanuts, suet and sunflower seeds. I thought for a second, as the bear face stayed right there, only half in view (it is really dark at 4:20 AM, expecially when it is raining). I opened the slider a couple of inches and half yelled at it, “Get going, get on out of here.”

The bear’s head slid out of view and I figured I would go out and retrieve the bird feeders. First though, I hade to figure out if the bear had actually gone down the stairs, or had just backed down a step. I grabbed a flashlight and shone it in the direction of the gate. It was closed so I slid out the door and over to the side of the rail and shone the light onto the steps. No bear – good! Then I heard the bear attacking the early warning system. I shone the light up the hill and sure enough, there he was working at getting the feeder. Good, he was occupied, so I grabbed all the feeders and brought them inside.

At this point, the dogs, who were sleeping downstairs with WS, decided to come up and investigate. They started woofing (softly). Thanks for nothing guys. Of course, the bear will go right by the dog pen, with the dogs in there barking their fool heads off, so it’s not like they would scare it off or anything.

I left a note for WS to put out the feeders before he left for work. For the next several weeks the feeders will be brought in at night, to discourage the bear from taking the trek up the deck steps.

And no, I haven’t found the thistle feeder yet. However, I haven’t been trudging around in the muddy, gloomy, rainy woods looking for it either. We’ll leave that for when it is sunny and dry.

Misinformed

Some say that the coverage of, and reaction to the swine flu is overblown. I must agree.

A dear friend, who shall remain nameless - who works in a doctor's office that is part of a local hospital came up with this statement Saturday night:

"I heard that there were over 100 deaths from the swine flu in the US alone."

Wow, such mis-information is being passed around in the medical community that it isn't even funny.

WS and I asured her that the US has only seen 1 death, and that from a non-native visitor that made it to a United States hospital. We also had to explain how the regular flu kills several thousand people per year (something like 16,000 - but don't quote me because I am going by memory).

So, we fed her pork chops and sent her on her merry way - hopefully a bit more informed than when she arrived.

A Few Tidbits

WS and Jimmy have loaded up their sleds the last couple of Saturdays and headed to Plymouth to ride. We have had quite warm weather during the last two weeks, so despite healthy snowfalls on every Monday, the snowbase on trails here is almost nill. Fortunately, they know peopel with trailers, so getting to where the snow base is deeper is not a big hassle.

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While WS was away yesterday, I started some seeds. Hot peppers and bell peppers were what I started out with. Then I decided to add in some of the perinials that I had collected seeds from last autumn: purple and white gay feathers, husker red penstemmon, tall phlox, bugbane and galardia. Since it was in the low 50's, I set up a table outside to keep the mess outside and get a bit of freash air at the same time.

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Nothing much happening and the bogie homestead - just doing homework, keeping house, going to work and waiting for the start of the Iditarod.

Fridge Magnets

Cop Car was writing about how she only had one magnet on her refrigerator. One? Only one? How can a fridge survive with only one magnet? Everyone knows that fridges need magnets to socialize with. I call that refrigerator abuse!

The Refrigerator at the Bogie household will never, ever complain about being deprived of magnets (or other stuff to mingle with):

    

 

 

And just think. This refrigerator is under one year old and we did not put any pictures/articles from the previous fridge on there. I believe it is obvious from the pictures that our refrigerator is well loved and we pay proper attention to its needs!

Definition of Fall

Last weekend, Fall began to live up to its name. Not temperature-wise mind you (although it was characteristically cool), but in as much as all the leaves fell - almost at once. In about a 36 hour time-span, the trees became bare.

The whole yard pretty much looked like the picture above. So Sunday, WS started raking.

   

Although he got a good portion of it done, a lot is still left to do. It has been rainy all this weekend (why is it always warm when it rains and cold on the other days - the days that we could ride? [/end whining])

Fuzzy wanted absolutely no part of any exertions, but did manage to capture one leaf.

 

We need another dry weekend to get the rest of the leaves up and bring in the patio and deck furniture. After that, bring on the snow - WS is antsy to get the sled out!

Thanks are in Order

I would like to take this opportunity, on Veteran's Day, to say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all active military personnel and veterans.

Shocking

Everybody sit down before you read what I am about to write. It will blow your mind and make you question if the world is still spinning the correct way on its axis. Also, have your heart medication handy, because this just might give you a jolt big enough to cause arrhythmia.

WS has been using my laptop computer at home. Never mind that it is MY birthday present (that is not the point at all), but that he voluntarily put himself in the position of using a computer - and it is not work related!

WS's birthday was a couple of weeks ago. Cop Car and HH got him an Ipod for the occasion (no, they don't know what they got him - well, after reading this they do). WS has wanted one so that he can put it in the stereo on his bike. Sure, he has a CD player, but carrying around all those CDs takes room (and it is a pain on long rides to have to stop because the music is repeating).

The Ipod came in on Monday. Tuesday, WS sat down and downloaded the software onto the laptop (with some coaching from me). Last night, while I was preparing tomato sauce, he got the laptop out and started downloading CDs into his playlists.

Since I have never done this before, I told him he was on his own. I did help out a couple of times with some educated guesses (massive computer experience will trump blind guessing almost every time), but for the most part he did it himself.

Oh, he also signed up for an Introduction to Computers community education class at the Concord High School, which he will be attending Monday night thru Thursday night next week. That should give him a more solid foundation for computer skills he needs at work.

Hmm, who knew that such massive changes could come in such a short time?

Fall Endeavors

The gardens held up well thru the storms on Saturday and Sunday. It didn't hurt at all that there was little wind involved.

The first frost warning came out for Thursday morning, so once again I went out and stripped tomatoes and cut buds from roses (what few there were - Japanese Beetles are still feasting). Last night I made 2 quarts of tomato sauce and used half of it for chii. Tonight there will be spaghetti made from the other half. MMM-mmm-mmm, nothing quite like home made sauce as a base!

Today I will make some Italian bread to go with the sketti, and while the machine (what, you thought I actually made bread by hand?) is doing it's thing, WS and I will head out to stack wood. We had started earlier in the year, then got sidetracked by other projects so we only have enough in the lean-to for a couple of months. Now we are getting down to the wire and it has to get done. First, about half of the pre-stacked wood has to be restacked. This is because of the assumption that we made that we would get back to stacking wood shortly after our first efforts (silly us). So, I started 2 banks of wood instead of filling up just one bank. The second bank of wood will have to be restacked to the front of the first bank, since it will be much drier than what is in the pile out behind the dog pen.

WS will load the split wood into the cart and bring it down with the 4-wheeler. I get the dubious honor of stacking the stuff after helping to unload it; it goes faster to get it out of the cart so WS can go re-load while I'm stacking.

We won't get all the wood stacked, but we should be able to finish up this year's supply and get a good start on next year's. We are hoping to get 3 year's supply in the lean-to so next year we can loaf around.

After the Storms

Total score for yesterday:

In the vegetable cooking category:

• 18 pints of salsa (14 hot and 4 x-hot)
• 7 quarts of Italian tomato sause
• Green bean and pea mixture for dinner vegetables (yum)

In the rain category:

• 3/8" rain in the morning
• just under an inch of rain from another system that came in from the West in the afternoon
• 3.5" of rain from Hannah last night

It is still dark so I don't know how everything held up last night under the downpour. WS did some work on the driveway (filling in low spots that might encourage erosion) yesterday afternoon, so hopefully it came out okay.

Daylight will tell the story.

Saturday Chores

We got none of the promised rain yesterday. Actually, we did get some - just enough that one could play connect-the-dots on the deck. At least it was cloudy, so it gave my transplanted veggies some relief from the sun.

I got green beans planted, but spent most time inside doing chores (housework, laundry, cleaning Birdie's cage etc.). WS spent time replacing part of the shed floor as it was getting a bit spongy and he figured it would not be a good thing if one of the bike tires or kickstands went thru. It was only a minor project - he only had to get the plywood twice. Yes, he did measure the thickness, but managed to measure at a knot so didn't get a true reading the first time (only at our place).

I tempted Mother Nature to rain by washing my truck and watering all the veggies after I planted the beans. Alas, although we got a couple rumbles of thunder, she just wasn't taking the bait.

While scrubbing Birdie's cage in the bathtub, I spent some quality time watching birds out the window:

  A Rose-breasted Grosbeak played peek-a-boo with me.

  Mr. and Mrs. Evening Grosbeak

  And again.

Fuzzy kept a constant pace with me when I was outside, obviously I wore him out:

  He thinks I put the pad on the glider just for his comfort!

It is supposed to be dry and windy today, so I will be out watering the vegies and all the potted plants. Perhaps I will also be planting some of those potted plants, or we may go for a ride with Jimmy. Decisions, decisions!