Last Weekend of Summer

Autumn is arriving with a vengeance. It is the last weekend of summer and the overnight temperatures have gone down to 30 already. But it is a wonderful crisp cool that makes sleeping so enjoyable.

I love this time of year up here as much, if not more than the after-season at the Jersey Shore. It is always quiet up here, but I have noticed even less traffic than before. What I am seeing more of now is motorcycles - I guess to get in their last ride and enjoy the foliage.

A dear friend of ours lent us her beach house this week. It was nice to get re-connected to the shore, but I found it to be noisy, as the houses are close together, and not as cool as I have become used to up here. Still, it was nice to sit on the beach, watch the seagulls and boats and feel the cool water on our toes. But I have to say, I became a little homesick. Still, if someone walked up to me and said here is a beach house, on the water, with plenty of space between you and your neighbors, would I say no? I would say, "thank you very much" and "how much are the taxes?"

This is also the best time of year to do those home maintenance things that you didn't do during the summer because it was too hot, or you were too busy. Life slows down more this time of year, so somehow you find you have the time to do those things like caulking, landscaping, painting, etc. We are now getting bids on our new boiler for the heat - that should be fun! Strange people coming into the house to pass judgement on our heating system and to recommend various ways to take our money. Yippee!

Wildlife

Let me start by saying that while we have had close encounters with wildlife, we have not had direct encounters. I am afraid that if some of our friends read about the wildlife here in the Poconos, they will never come to visit. I want to reassure them, but also to state that we are in the mountains! I am pleased that humankind has not destroyed all the natural wildness in the world.

It is still a little unnerving when you have encounters with wildlife, especially if you were raised in the city, like my husband, or in the tourist area of the Jersey Shore, as I was. Wildlife to us very often consisted of an occasional bunny, squirrel, bird, or drunken person. But now, living surrounded by forest areas with trees over 200 years old, we see flora and fauna that we used to see on TV documentaries. We have a nesting pair of eagles in one of our trees! How cool is that!

Deer are a way of life around here. They prance about our property and set off our motion sensored lights regularly. The previous owner 'caged' his prize bushes and flowers to prevent deer from eating them; we took the fencing down and while the deer eat some of our rhododendron bushes and hedges, the plants seem to be okay. My husband hit deer with the car one foggy night last year - the deer was fine, our front end was a mess! Part of living up here, I guess.

Our real first encounter was with a bear. We had come up to our cabin (before we bought the house) on New Year's Eve and we saw evidence that bear had been in the area. Since we did not see him/her/it, we figured get inside and just keep an eye out if we go outside. Later that night, around 8 PM we heard a scratching on our sliding glass door. I asked my husband to look and he said "What if it is the bear?" Well, I speculated that it would not expect to find anyone 'home,' so we would scare it more than it would scare us (Yeah, right!) So he got the flashlight and a broom (I guess so he could sweep it to death) and looked out the patio door where the scratching was coming from. "I don't see anything." But there was a little white paw near the bottom of the door. "Look down." There, outside the door, in 20 degree below zero wind chill, was a gold cat! As my husband opened the door to look closer, the cat walked right in, went into the guest bedroom, onto the bed and made himself at home - happy, purring and treading! The cat we had brought up with us for the weekend gave this intruder the usual greeting - growl, hiss,fitt, all the cat-anger noises!

Now what? This little cat was obviously well fed, used to people - he had to belong to somebody. So we boxed him up and my husband rode around the area to see if anyone had lost a cat. After 2 hours and subjecting this poor cat to inspection by numerous people, he brought the feline home. We named him Little Bear. And we did see the real bear a couple of weeks later - glad we didn't let him in!

We do get mice in the winter in the house - brave little souls with all the cats around. We discovered that our girl cats are much better mousers - the boys just like to watch. There is a comment there, but I will not make it.

Just this week we had another wildlife encounter. We were keeping our extra catfood in a locker outside and it was broken into. Okay, we should have known better, 20/20 hindsight and all, but we usually only do that in the summer. In the winter, we keep the locked container in our garage, and all bagged groceries in canisters or the refrigerator because of the mice. But whatever broke into this locker this week took about 9 pounds of catfood, bag and all. Maybe it was another bear?

Holidays

Living with someone who works in the 'service industry' often means that you do not get to celebrate holidays with that person, as those are the days when employees are needed most at work. This means holidays like Independence Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, New Years, etc. have to celebrated on alternate days. That is okay, as we are not big on the 'big day' celebrations and the togetherness can be celebrated on another day - besides, most of the stuff you need for commemorating a holiday go on sale the day after!

This year something different occurred. Somehow my husband had the 4th of July evening off - the planets must have misaligned or something. We did not know what to do, so we thought we could go out to dinner. You would think people who work in restaurants would figure out that you need a reservation! Okay, so we'll get some 'to - go' food and picnic out by Lake Wallenpaupack and watch the fireworks.

A note here - I have not gone to see fireworks since I was a kid at the Jersey Shore, so I forgot how crowded the area gets prior to the display. These crowds were professionals! They must have been camped out at the lake all day! And park - where? People were parking practically on the road, not next to the road. Then my husband and I remembered why we never go out on the holiday, besides having to work. The crowds and the yelling and the general mayhem is very stress inducing. We looked at each other and I said that there are the fireworks from DC and NYC and Boston being broadcast this evening and he said, lovingly, "get the heck out of here!"

On a positive note, in spite of the gas prices and the food prices and the economy, the fact that there were crowds at the lake was good to see. Maybe the advertising to the NYC market about the Poconos being close by has worked. At least some of the local businesses should be happy.

We enjoyed our meal at home, set off some sparklers, and watched fireworks on TV. Togetherness...