Troublesome Bear Aside

The time that I give myself for writing these little missives was taken up by a nap on Friday. Finally! A nap to set the week right. So, I was not able to post here. Let’s try again today. Early on Friday some further work in the kitchen was completed. It’s down to the finest details that don’t really show up in photos, so it does’t look like further progress, but this is a good phase to be in. The home stretch.

We finished digging the first variety of potatoes on Saturday and welcomed October on Sunday. There was plenty of sunshine and warm days but the nights have been cool, calling for an extra blanket. Window is still open, as always. We both decided we needed a fairly low-key weekend and we will certainly pay for that with the list of autumn chores before us, but it was good medicine and who am I to refuse that.

Bow season has started and it looks like we’ll need to work out a new morning routine with Mason. He was still a puppy last year at this time, so things were different. He has more freedom now and is well established in his routines. Adam took him out for an early potty break before he headed out. That was great. It was still dark, and the dogs know not to expect much freedom before it’s light out. He brought Mason back inside and left quietly. Mason slept for another two hours. By 7:20, daylight was streaming in and his internal clock could be quieted no more. So I let him out again, he leapt off the house-porch, beelined straight to the porch of Adam’s workshop (he gets dressed in there for hunting), sniffed the boots that were there, then immediately followed Adam’s foot trail from the porch straight down the garden road, hung a left up the camp road, kept his nose to the trail, and eventually found his way to Adam’s tree stand. Unfortunately, this concluded the day’s hunt. Indeed, we need to work on this routine. We’ve never seen Mason demonstrate such a stellar sniffer before; it was pretty wild! For a while now I’ve been saying that I think he’s the kind of dog that would alert us if Timmy was in the well. Now I know he is that kind of dog. Looking ahead, we know the logical thing is for Adam to head to the state forest, or to unposted land, but there’s something a man values about hunting his own land.

Overnight, a bear helped himself to the remains of the corn patch and to the layers’ daytime run. Had a little party for himself. They love the corn and grain scraps this time of year. Troublesome bear aside, I am happy to share that it sure is feeling like October around here.