Advertisement
Published: June 14th 2016
Yoo-hoo......time to chat again about our local critters and then attend another festival. Hope you're not busy. Sit awhile......my first story is really a continuation of the previous one.
Minding our own business, Cory and I were just strolling around our yard. We have various out buildings on our property. Cory has added many sheds and lean-to's onto our old, wooden barn. He's been quite a busy carpenter guy over these years. He built on the front of the barn a big, double lean-to that we have used to hold some of our cars, especially during the winter. Right now he has his 2 lawn mower tractors in it. The next enclosed shed used to hold one of the tractors but now it is full of bird seed and our garbage cans. The next little lean-to was Chip's kennel. He never really used it except when we left the gate to it open.....he would dig a big hole in the dirt inside it and roll around like a furry gyroscope. He loved doing that. Boy, we still miss him so much. The metal kennel was bought by our neighbor so the lean-to only holds a few pieces of junk now.
Shed with bear paw prints
I think this is the bear that left themBehind this old kennel is a long, enclosed shed. Again, just a storage place for whatever.....mostly junk.
Now that I have thoroughly described almost every inch of this old barn building (except for the barn) and everything that is attached to it, I'll get to the main point. As we meandered past the barn; big, brown, mud marks caught our eye on the shed that holds the birdseed and garbage cans. What?!! OMG.....big bear paw prints were imprinted onto this shed door. Yep, the big black bear had returned. It obviously was trying to get to the bird seed & garbage. Yikes! It must have been the same bear our outdoor cam caught on camera that recently visited our feed station. The mother bear. For whatever reason, it couldn't open the shed door even though the latch wasn't the strongest. We feel like we are living in Yellowstone National Park. Do not feed the Bears! I researched what to do in case we come face to face with this large, furry creature. In Florida, we think the "no-see-ums" are a problem.....what a difference location makes with the "problems" we have....from minute biting bugs to huge, man-eating monsters. Geeze. Our
Close up
Comparison with Ryan's hand grandson, Ryan, had just stopped by for a visit so I had him put his hand up next to one of the paw prints.
It was so nice of Ryan to stop by. Cory utilized his youth and strength to climb a big ladder to reach the soffits on our big pole barn. Cory prefers not to join the "fall-off-the-ladder" group (one member is called Fram). The birds had lifted a spot on the soffit and made their nest in it a few months ago. They are gone now so Ryan fixed the spot so they can't get in again. We have hundreds of trees but they seem to think the pole barn is a better nesting spot.....crazy birds.
But let's get back to the shed. I fussed about the pathetic latch so Cory got busy and shut me up. Even a dinosaur can't get into the shed now. His handiwork will do the trick and keep any creature, large or small, out of it.....for sure. He tends sometimes to over do his work.....what do you think?
We still have a few bird feeders in our tree...not as many but still enough to provide adequate nourishment for
Ryan & Cory fixing soffit
Ryan on the ladder while Cory steadies it. our feathered friends. Cory put them high in the tree hoping that discourages any bear that might pass by. We get a nice variety of birds...caught this woodpecker dining on the seeds the other day.
Okay...that's enough of animal talk.
On Sunday, Tim and his lovely girlfriend, Courtney, came down for a visit. Courtney had not been to our house before so Tim was busy trying to explain each room and what they meant. He showed her the bedrooms upstairs....2 of which had been his at one time. The very, very small room that we now use just for storage was his "nursery".... It worked okay back then because he was small, too. Downstairs, we explained out computer/eBay room: shelves and piles of stuff I've put on or will be putting on eBay. Kind of cluttered. I showed her some of our own personal collections that we have out on display.....gift shop decor....like at Lory's house. In the back of our house are two more room that are our "dump" rooms. They seem to pile up with item to take to our co-op plus other things we don't know were to put them yet..stuff just gets dumped here.
The furthest back room used to be another bedroom that Tim had. Being the youngest of our children, he got to move from room to room as his siblings moved out. Musical bedrooms. Anyway, now it's a major store room for more eBay, co- op and "we don't know what to do with" items. Packed floor to ceiling. Tim tried to explain where he had is bed, dresser, desk, etc.- tricky to picture this amongst all the boxes and stuff that's heaped high. Not wanting to hold anything back, we took Courtney out onto our enclosed patio. We used to have picnics and parties out here. Not anymore. It is packed floor to ceiling, front to back with tons of our "stuff" we still have to sell. Many, old, interesting chairs hang from the ceiling. A small path down the middle allows a tight passage way to get from one end to the other. Being the gracious person Courtney is, she politely acknowledged the hanging chairs while refraining from comments about all the other crap that was there.
Not done yet. A visit to my small store (between our house and our pole barn) that I never open. It's
Fallen tree
Across our critter path become messy and stuff is strewn around. I do need to get out there and clean and straighten it up but why? Only on a rare occasion do I open it to the public. Again, being polite, she said she liked my store. I told her to take anything she wanted. She did find some "Dooley" glass mugs for her father. Great..less I have to deal with. Our tour ended in our pole barn and a look inside our RV. I'm sure it was a bit overwhelming for her (it is even for us) but she remained pleasant and polite about where and how we live. On our golf cart, Tim took her up back on our trail to the critter feeding station. Once on the trail, he encountered a huge tree that had fallen across the path. He had to go around the back way.
Cory worked on the tree today. He thinks it was hit by lightning. It was a healthy, big tree that had been broken right over. He had to saw the fallen branches out of the path. He'll back another time to take care of the main part of the poor tree. Work, work,
Church festival
St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church work.....we want to return to Florida for just fun and relaxation.
Once done with the our house and yard tour, we all headed to Olean, NY. Every year, there is a huge festival put on by Saint Mary of the Angels Catholic Church. Today was their Irish day. Courtney liked that because she is Irish. They had the cute Irish girl dancers as well as Irish singers and Bagpipers. We ate their chicken bar-b-que. They had a big basket, Chinese auction (didn't win a thing!). I wanted a T-shirt and they said it was free if you bought a raffle ticket...GREAT! Only thing....one ticket was $50.00. Yikes. Cory got one anyway...all for a good cause and I got my shirt. We also took our pictures with the Pope. He sends his blessing to all of you. They had other food selections, a beer tent, cake auction, roulette wheel and scratch cards. There were various games to play. Courtney and I went inside this magnificent, enormous church. So beautiful. It was a nice day and fun to wander around this festival.
Our time together did not end here. We shared the excitement of Wal-mart together. I had my usual
Warning everyone
Tim does selfie list of things we "needed" and Tim found what he needed for an upcoming annual fishing trip with his buddies at the Thousand Islands. It was all good. Courtney and Tim headed back to Rochester from Olean while we headed in the other direction to go home. We so enjoyed our time together.
Before we hit home, we stopped at our daughter's, Lory, home. Sara was entertaining herself with some guitar playing game. It was nice to see them both. Jay was off playing golf.
That's all, folks.....for now. Hope you had as good a time as we did. Remember, this is not Florida, Toto. No Disneyworld, no Universal Studios, and no Webster Flea Market to go to. We are in Western NY....rural Western NY. So we have a different selection of "fun things to do". It's another part of the world. We find we don't have to have the big time amusements to have a fun time. It's all how you make it. And we seem to always make it fun. I think you do the same. I can hear you laughing and cheering at all these various events. Keep your dance card clear.....we still have more
plans ahead. See you there!
Remember to scroll way, way down to see all 16 photos. ?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.135s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.11s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Courtney
non-member comment
Thank you for adding me to the blog distribution! I feel privileged, and loved reading it! It was wonderful seeing you both and spending time with you on Sunday. You have a beautiful HOME! Ps. My dad is going to love the Dooley mugs (part of his Father's Day gift!) Thanks again!