New Adventures and Experiences

 

First, a weather report:  some sunshine this afternoon after 3 days of rain and gloom, and cold – high of 48 yesterday, about 60 today and going down to 39 tonight.  Warmer in a few days, with nights in the 40s in the meantime -- still mild during the day considering that tomorrow is the first day of summer (June 21st).  In the first few weeks, plenty of rain and cool temperatures.

 

Today, it has been like Grand Central Station here in the woods.  First a bucket truck from our electric company showed up to clear trees on our driveway over and under power lines; I had called them last Wednesday about this, so their service was extremely fast.  This is a cooperative company, and thus very responsive to their members.  Then a big propane truck showed up to fill our 500-gallon tank; this had been arranged nearly two weeks ago.  The bucket truck hadn’t gotten up the driveway very far when the propane truck arrived, so the bucket truck backed down into our yard to allow passage – we have a gravel driveway 0.4 miles long and only one vehicle wide.  This afternoon, the chipper truck arrived to grind up the cuttings from the bucket truck fellows.  As you can tell, these Maine folks are working hard and not celebrating Juneteenth today!  Bill and I discovered that they had only finished about 1/3, so we expect they’ll be back one day soon.

 

Bill and I took a major detour when our plane landed in Bangor on May 25th; we headed straight to New Haven, Connecticut, in our rental car for Bill’s fraternity reunion, his 50th which had been postponed for two years due to COVID, and the first one to which he had been back.  It was a joy for him to reconnect with his class “brothers” and to meet current students which now include “sisters.”  One young woman from Zimbabwe noticed Bill’s face mask out on the street with the logo of their mutual fraternity, and we chatted with her; she’s about to start her PhD in technology of medical devices, an expertise that she will take back to her native country eventually.  We had dinner with two current students: an Asian-American woman and a Costa Rican man, along with one of Bill’s class “brothers” in the crypt of the fraternity.  Here we are, after a delightful dinner, followed by much, late-night camaraderie:

 

 

We put about 750 miles on the rental car (a new Chevy Malibu with less than 1,000 miles), and when we got 30 miles from home, our tire picked up something in the grocery store parking lot; we had stopped only to get food for that night and the next morning before driving back to Bangor the next day to return it and drive our car for a big summer supply shopping run.  We got as far as a dirt patch on a local side street before the tire was absolutely flat.  Did I mention that it was raining lightly?  We took our luggage out of the trunk (which I put in the back seat out of the rain) so Bill could get the spare out; he was jacking the car up when a pick-up truck with a young man and woman came along.  They live on that street, and the woman, on her way home from work, had seen “two older people” trying to change a tire in the rain.  She immediately got her husband to come to our aid, and locals do know how to readily change tires!  People up here are truly neighborly; they wouldn’t take any gift of wine (we had stopped at the NH State Liquor Store – they said they don’t drink) nor monetary compensation, and gave us their phone number in case we had trouble getting back to Bangor the next day!  BTW, with the small spares that come with these cars, one can only drive 50 mph or less, so we drove the 85 miles back to Bangor on the back roads – took a little more than 2 hours on what is usually 1-1/2.

 

When we finally got home the night of the flat tire, it was almost dark, but we proceeded to get the electricity, water, refrigerator and our car up and running.  I first noticed droppings in the basement, then on the two floors of the house.  MICE!  In 32 years, we had never had mice in the house.  You may remember the mice dealings in the garage 2 years ago, also a first.  There was powdered milk strewn around the kitchen floor (the rascal had put a big hole in the plastic bag); minor droppings appeared in numerous places, including in the refrigerator which I had cleaned before we left last fall, and had left the doors open so it wouldn’t mildew; it had eaten into numerous bars of soap, being particularly partial to Ivory under the lower bathroom sink.  As I was getting the water up and running in the house, I discovered a mold scum in the upstairs toilet – sure enough, a mouse had drowned in the antifreeze and was mostly disintegrated.  I thought that was the end of it, but a few days went by, and I discovered small holes in the bags of powdered milk I had bought on our shopping run in Bangor.  ANOTHER RASCAL and more droppings where we had cleaned.  We surmised it was on the second floor, so I set traps up there, and hungry for the sunflower seeds in it, it succumbed that night.  Here’s my theory:  the one that drowned in the toilet antifreeze had gotten into the basement through the open hatch when we were closing down last fall and I was draining the water system; I could see how it got up in the house around the heating ducts, and with nothing to drink or really eat – powdered milk and soap aren’t very nourishing – it died, drowned trying to get water.  The second one probably came in through the same open hatch when we were setting up that first night when I had the hatch ajar to run the hose outside to clean out the water pressure tank.  We live in the woods; mice are a part of the ecosystem and food chain, and regularly, we get them under the hood of our car that sits out in the yard.  I’ll be putting traps out there pretty soon.

 

On to other mice adventures…our next-door neighbors, Tammy and Jeff Stroud, have a family of foxes living in the wood pile under their lean-to attached to their large shop.  Invited for dinner at their house, we saw the show that has kept them captivated since January.  Mama Fox, that they have named Frieda, became obviously pregnant; they started feeding her mice (caught at the neighbors on the other side with the peanut butter and water-in-bucket trick) and meat scraps, and she gave birth to seven kits.  Six have survived.  Dad Fox, named Dave, had been around, but has been gone for a couple of weeks, leaving Frieda to tend to the kits and teach them how to hunt for mice and other food.  The Strouds continue to feed both the mother and kits.  Frieda has gotten pretty tame and will come to a big rock not more than 15 feet off their front porch where they put food.  She will gather it all up and take it to the kits; if she can’t take it all in one trip, she won’t take any of it, whereas Dave would make trips back and forth to gather it all.  Frieda loves peanuts, and will devour those herself.  They’ve also noted Dave bumping Frieda off the rock.  What’s more exciting than watching nature in action!

 

Here’s Frieda on the feeding rock:

 

 

 

Frieda nursing her kits near the lean-to where they live in the wood pile; she stands to nurse:

 

Bill and I got most of the set-up done here, including the dock and boat in the water, kayaks out of the basement and used, and my garden planted – the green beans and collard greens are above ground, basil and cilantro yet to appear, and spindly tomato plants are branching out and flowering.  I harvested rhubarb and now strawberries, of which the native wild ones have run rampant through the real strawberry patch; I’ve made one strawberry-rhubarb pie and a small batch of jam and have frozen some for future delights.

  The Siberian Irises, in perhaps my favorite flower garden, are abundant and glorious this year; they are accompanied by Bachelor Buttons, False Indigo and soon-to-blossom Sweet Williams, followed by Day Lilies, Potentilla, and several varieties of Goldenrod.  The yellow object is moss covering a piece of dri-ki, a Passamaquoddy Indian word for lake driftwood.

 

 

 

 

 

Cranesbill, part of the geranium family, is a perennial I love; it’s foliage is delicate and the flowers, now in bloom, are very pretty; it’s surrounded by Hostas that will bloom next month, with a barn-yard favorite, Golden Glow, that grows 3-4 feet tall in the background in front of the house foundation.  I’ve been working on the stone walkway in the front of this picture for several years (I get about 5 stones planted each year, too much else going on), and in the meantime, all kinds of vegetation have grown up in it – moss, grass, little maple and hemlock trees, weeds, wild strawberries…which I attempt to pull up each summer.

 

 

Wishing you a good summer, wherever you are and in whatever adventures and experiences you have!

 Marilyn