Chairs, Stairs and Bears

Well, it was bound to happen..... I was sitting by the fire, minding my own business, when I heard a twig snap in the bush behind me.  I turned around and found a bear sniffing around under my awning.  The good news is that there was a picnic table between me and the bear.  The bad news is that I had to run towards him if I wanted to get into the RV.  I started banging on the table and on a cast iron frying pan that we had used to cook dinner and yelling at him at the top of my lungs.  My sister was inside the RV and opened the door, and I got up those stairs in record time.  Maybe I should consider attaching a small grizzly to the back of a stair climber, as motivation for exercise.

Anyhow, that same night, the weather man finally got it right and we had rain for the second time this summer.  Naturally, I wasn't about to go out and retrieve the stuff that I'd left out there in my race to the stairs.  So, that is how all the chairs, the kindling and the thermacell got wet.  Sigh.....stupid bears.

How To Get Rid of Raccoons

Easy!  Get a bear or, in our case, several bears.

In 48 years of camping at Grundy, I've seen one bear but dozens of raccoons.  So far this year, I've seen 4 bears, heard 3 others but I've only seen one raccoon.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.

Waiting for dinner

 The bears are getting pretty aggressive because there are very few berries this year.  They've been wandering around the campgrounds all summer.  So far, the rangers have trapped 12 of them but they just keep on coming.  They appeared on the lot right next to me (the one I used to be on).  The one big male went under the campers' awning and munched on some citronella candles while the people were sitting around their campfire only about 15 feet away. Needless to say, the campers were guilty of making some "excessive noise" that night.  The next night, a younger bear came trotting through the same campsite and the guy had to throw a chair at it.  A few days before, a bear tore the back window off a truck cab to get at some dog food.  I'm beginning to wonder if I should get the box full of zucchini out of my car.

We've already had some

Speaking of zucchini.... you have to watch what you say around here.  We had friends over the other night and they mentioned that their garden was producing very well.  They asked if we'd like some zucchini and we said sure.  The next day, we found a box full of zucchini, cucumbers and peppers on our picnic table.  Looks like I'll be turning vegetarian now.  Anyone got a good recipe for zucchini bread?

Vole-au-Vent and Chips

Where's a camera when you need it?  Tessa the cat loves being at Grundy because her inner huntress can be given free rein.  And speaking of reins, we have her tethered to a 20 foot leash because otherwise we'd never catch her.  She's pretty good about following the rules, though:  we tell her she can't go out without her bra on, so she obediently turns away from the door and patiently waits while we put her harness on her.

We've discovered that the animals at Grundy are not the brightest.  On our first day, Tessa encountered a bunch of grackles and stood calmly by while they stole all her food.  But she's made up for it since then.  Her favorite thing to hunt are chipmunks.  Thank heavens that she's a "catch and release" type of hunter.  She caught the first one by the belly but let it go immediately.  The second one had a bit more undignified fate.

She caught the poor thing by the butt and had it dangling from her mouth for several minutes.  Every time she lowered her head, the poor chippie tried to walk away.  It looked like they were playing a game of "wheelbarrow".  She finally let it go, but then promptly sat on it.  All we could see was this poor little chipper's head poking out from under Tessa.

The weird thing is that, when they were finally released, both chipmunks walked away in slow motion.  You would think that they would high tail it out of there.  That one poor guy probably still can't sit down.  Strangely enough, there have been no other chipmunks on our lot in recent days.  Guess the chippie herd got the memo.

Tessa, undeterred, has now turned her attention to the many voles that live in the bush.  They don't seem to notice her and will carry on doing vole-like things right under her nose.  It's only a matter of time before something bites them in the ass.

Homeless People and Missionaries

Well, summer at Grundy has been fabulous and a little hectic.  By hectic, I mean kind of insane.  Both of my sisters are now officially homeless – they sold their houses and plan to move into their gorgeous new RV.  Plan is the operative word.  This is the RV that was badly damaged back in Texas in December.  Finally, after seven months of waiting, they got word that it was ready, so off they went to Texas to pick it up.  The weather there was a balmy 105 degrees so they didn’t linger.  They made the round trip in just over 10 days!  When they got back to Grundy, they learned that the repair people in Mission (Missionaries?) needed a bit more specific directions when completing their work, e.g.  Put the sink in AND hook it up AND put a washer in there.  Then put the toilet in AND hook up the pipes AND maybe don’t fill the pipes with grout.  Put the banquette seats in AND bolt them down so people don’t flip off them when they sit.  And when you put the carpet in, cut off the extra stuff; don’t just tuck it back in and tack in down so there’s a big lump when you go into the bedroom.   You get the idea…..   So, after only a few days, they sent the rig off for repairs to Sudbury and moved in with me.  They’ve been waiting 2 weeks for an estimate that was supposed to be done in 3 days.  This is not looking promising.  

Meanwhile, our cars our loaded with stuff, my RV is wall to wall clothes and stuff but we’re having fun playing Dominoes, Super Tock and watching Coronation Street.  

The weather has cooperated and we’ve had very little rain, which is a nice change from the past two years.  And the weather is nothing….not hot, not cold, not windy, not still….just nothing.   We’re kinda hoping for something soon.  Just to be clear….something good.