To Everything, There is a Season...

Everyone gets to experience the traditional four seasons - summer, fall, winter, spring - but in the Poconos, we have many more seasons. Of course, there are the Hunting Season(s), something many people look forward to up here, as well as various Fishing Seasons (ice, trout, etc.), Camping Season, Boating Season - any season that gets the blood pumping in the followers of those activities. There are the sport seasons - Baseball, Football, Hockey, etc. But up here, we have some of our own special seasons:

Mud Season - comes right after the ice thaws and before the greenery starts. This season is especially appreciated by people with light colored rugs and new wood floors. Not much you can do about it and some communities celebrate it with special fairs and activities. An extra special attribute to the mud season is when it freezes again and makes for better slipping when driving or walking.

Road Repair Season - a special time that allows people from all walks of life to gather together on their way to -anywhere- to share in the joy and camaraderie that comes from the frustration of not getting where you are going. This season comes right after the Ice Season that causes other traffic delays, but is a contributing cause for Road Repair Season.

Ice Season (also known as Winter) - another source of frustration for drivers, and as mentioned above, closely allied with Road Repair Season. I give all the credit in the world to the plow drivers and salters, but they sometimes miss spots, or spots re-freeze, making for spectacular driving calisthenics. And, of course, all that freezing, thawing, salting and plowing leads us to...

Pot Hole Season - we have some of the most spectacular pot holes that I have ever witnessed in my years of driving. Axles have very little chance if it were not for the deft driving that a person develops up here.

However, worst pot hole that I have ever heard of occurred on the Belt Parkway in NYC. The traffic reports on the radio station went something like this:

10 after the hour= "We have a report of a pretty big pot hole on the Belt Parkway this morning. Be careful, as it is in the left lane."

20 after the hour= "We are getting a report that a Volkswagen Beetle as driven into the pot hole and has become stuck. That makes this a pretty big pot hole and we advise you to be careful and stay out of the left lane. NYC is sending out a crew to assess the situation."

40 after the hour= "Okay folks, this is a new one on me. The city has sent out the crew and they have put a flag on the car to alert traffic of its location. I guess they cannot get the car out, I don't know, but I would avoid the left lane of the Belt Parkway by any means possible!"

Sometimes I miss New York City traffic reports!

Clean-Up Season - before planting season, there is the traditional time for cleaning up after the ravages of Winter. As I said before, we had a lot of downed limbs and bent bushes from the ice storms. We also have some clean-up to the house and certainly some painting is in order soon. As far as raking the lawn of little bits and pieces, I prefer to leave that to the next season...

Windy Season - "March comes in like a lion," right? Well, we never raked our leaves because October must come in like a buffalo or other large animal. Someone got our leaves, but we got all the twigs and other roughage from the somewhere or somebody's lawn, but I have faith that the winds of March will just blow that stuff on along somewhere else. If not, in April, we rake - cannot rush these things.

Growing Season - I hope we can have one this year. It is shorter than I have been used to, but a couple of dear friends had a garden up here last year and the 'fruits of their labor' were wonderful. I hope we are as successful. But, of course, then we have to contend with deer, birds, etc. trying to eat our garden. Then will come...

Harvest Season - we hope...

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?