"Accept the Chocolate"

My husband and I had a lovely day yesterday celebrating our anniversary (see previous blog entry). We had a nice lunch, then poked around in hardware stores and the outlets in Tannersville, just looking and planning what we could do with our house this spring and summer. We would have liked to have taken a nice drive and had a sumptuous feast at a restaurant with a nice view of the mountains or the lake, but it was rainy and grey, so we went to a chain restaurant that played music that I do not particularly like. It was one of those days where every time we decided we should go ahead and get or order or do something, the item was sold out - unavailable - on order - 'should have been here yesterday,' etc.


Horoscopes


I do read my horoscope, several versions. Do I 'believe' in them? Not really. The 'fortunes' they predict are vague at best and get recycled around year by year. I think of them as fun references, especially when the prediction seems to be real. My horoscope yesterday said 'everything you may wish to purchase may not be available, for example, you may wish to buy a vanilla ice cream and all the shop will have available will be chocolate,' or something like that. Darn if that did not appear to be true yesterday! So our mantra became "Accept the Chocolate!"

Salespeople in the stores looked at us funny when we said that to each other after every disappointment, but, then again, we are used to salespeople looking at us funny. Nice to know we can give some variety to their day, I guess.


There was a time that these little 'ant bites' would bother the life out of me. So many things were discombobulated yesterday I could have gotten very cranky, but I have tried to develop an attitude that eventually things will come to fruition. Snow will melt and Spring will come. Mice will stop annoying us in the Winter to be supplanted by mosquitoes and flies in the Summer. Wait, that was not very positive, was it? Anyway, we can get around the annoyances and handle whatever happens. "Accept the Chocolate!"

Ike



This is Ike, laying on top of Sunny (who is not happy about this situation). He was trying to find a replacement for Checkers after she died and started to lay next to - or on top of- anyone who came near him, just like he used to do with Checkers. I put this picture up because it is the last picture I took of Ike. He joined Checkers on February 9, passing peacefully in his sleep laying next to his Daddy. He was 18 years old. R.I.P.

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?