Life in the Bristolwood

Phew, that is how I felt today.  Got up, got my motor running, and never sat still all day! Yesterday was like this as well.  Last night, when I finally flopped down to sleep, my poor legs hurt and it was hard to sleep!

So…I took a few photos yesterday but was too pooped to blog last night!

When I got up in the morning yesterday, it was snowing.  The snow was coming down steadily, but because the ground was warm, it melted pretty fast.  It did leave its mark on some things, though. Since I get up long before the sun (or lack thereof) does, I love to light little tealight candles and set them in the windows. (in votice holders!)  Look how pretty!

I love this little bit of “alone time” before everyone else gets up.  Murphy and I are the only ones stirring and it is nice to start the day quietly!

And, here are a couple of photos of the remains of the aforementioned snow…

I spent a couple of hours doing errands in Canandaigua yesterday afternoon.  It was a cold day, but the sun was shaining and the sky was blue!  When I came home,  I made some meatballs for spaghetti.  While they were baking,  I made up a batch of cloverleaf rolls.  Dinner was a hit, as Ben and Mark had spent the day outside working.  They were so cold!

Today, Mark and Ben were up and at it once again.  I had gone out to the garage at 6am and made a fire in the woodstove so the garage would be warm.  Mark kept the fire going throughout the day, and when he and Ben finally came in for dinner at seven tonight, the garage was a toasty seventy degrees!  No wonder they took long to get in….early this evening, it began raining, although the thermometer said only twenty-six degrees!

While the guys were out working,  I went to work on cleaning the chimney on the woodstove in the living room.  The stove seemed less efficient than usual yesterday, so I thought a good cleaning was in order.  It doesn’t take long and the result was the stove is burning better now.

After finishing up the stove,  Michelle’s friend came over to the house for a few hours.  I bounced back and forth between the house and garage.  Thankfully, we had some chicken breasts left over from a few nights ago.  I sliced them and warmed them up in my homemade Buffalo wing sauce and served them with homemade Bleu Cheese dressing,  mixed veggies, and potatoes. Once again, I am so tired!

Murphy wakes me up every night, walking around.  I don’t remember him doing this before Angus died, so I don’t know if it is related.  I started feeding him half a meal in the morning, and the other half in the evening, hoping this would help him sleep better.  He actually did sleep in a little this morning, so maybe two meals a day might help.

When Mark came into the house tonight, I was pretty concerned. We had that freezing rain on the steps and handrail.  Ben poured hot water on them just before Mark came up and it worked well. Phew!  Afterwards, I took some more photos….

During my running about yesterday, I picked up a pair of boots!  What better thing to wear out tonight into the miserable weather?

And, I got an umbrella and walked out to show you just how miserable this weather is!

Yup, the car is encased in a shroud of ice tonight!

And, one more photo.  When Mark cut through a piece of 4″ x 4″ pressure-treated lumber today, instead of “heartwood”, what he found left him starstruck!

I don’t think I have ever seen anything like this before!

I really need to dump my photos off my cards!  Yikes! I keep saying Iwill keep up from now on, but it seems like photos add up FAST!

Here are a couple of photos I took a few days ago in Woodville.

I love that RED boat! Since the lake flooded the parking lot at the boat launch for a couple of weeks in April, Iwas surprised to see the wild Irises growing!  I thought they might have been messed up or that they might bloom much later!

For Memorial Day, we had placed a new bouquet of flowers on my father-in-law’s grave.  I also snapped a couple photos of an eagle memorial that wasat the cemeteryto honor those who served in the US armed forces. My father-in-law loved eagles!

Here is what is gracing our dinner table.

I love Carnations.  I love their spicy scent and their appearance.  I think the pink ones are especially pretty with the white Baby’s Breath. These were the combination I chose for flowers for our wedding!

Okay,then.  Are you sitting down?  This next photo is of “someone” who lives not too far away. I only had the little Canon camera with meon the dayItook this photo and I was bummed I had left the Nikon with its telephoto at home….

I aim to get a BETTER photo, but in the meantime….If you travel down Route 64,  just south of the Town of Bristol (maybe 2 or 3 miles?) look at the small blue house on the west side of the road.  You will see the recliner sitting there and perhaps….well…

After today, I am quite sure the Lord created animals to humor us and make us smile! We just have to take the time to see them at their antics.

I dropped the kids at school today, then went down by the lake.  Nothing too interesting there.  I looped around and went towards town.  As I was driving, I spotted three Mallard Ducks and pulled into McDonald’s as that was where they were hanging out.  I parked the truck and smiled from ear to ear as I watched this trio.

You cannot see the third duck in the photo above, but the trio consisted of one girlie and two boys.  Can you take a guess who was the “leader”?

Yes sir! The little girlie was calling out for the fellows to follow her! She acted so confident.  I got a bit concerned….5 & 20 is a major highway, after all!

As the traffic came speeding along, all three ducks made a beeline towards the sidewalk!  I guess they do have some “street smarts”!

Time for another crossing attempt.  This time, the boys decided to go their own way.  Enough of  following that girlie and nearly getting run over!

My heart was in my throat as I watched the three ducks waddling across two lanes of traffic. Thankfully, there was little traffic and a big white truck came to a total stop to allow the birds to make it to the median.

As I returned to our truck , a man pulled over next to me and asked if I thought the ducks were going to make it all the way over to the other side of the road!  He had been watching them as well!

I didn’t linger.  I had errands to run and I could not spend any more time watching the ducks.

I finished all my errands and then picked up Ben. We grabbed some lunch and headed on home. 

Along the way home on Route 21, there is a marshy area between Canandaigua and Cheshire.  Ben and I were chatting as I drove along, when something that seemed very out of the ordinary and strange caught my eye! Ben looked at me with questioning eyes as I pulled into a side road and turned the truck around.

Sure enough!  I did see what I thought I did!

If you click to enlarge the above photo, you might be able to make out a bushy tail draped from the opening in the nesting box….As I passed this area, I had to do a double take, as I was pretty sure I saw a squirrel sitting on top of that same nesting box!  As soon as I got out of the truck, the little bugger hurried and hopped inside the box.

The second photo is an attempt to show that there was no way, other than by swimming for that little squirrel to get to the box!  The little bugger would have to swim at least 6 or 8 feet to reach the pole!

I had no idea that squirrels could even swim!

Yesterday’s weather felt nearly “balmy”.  It was warm. And rainy. It was a pretty miserable day with gray skies that never went away the entire day.  We were told substantial rain was coming but while I waited for the kids to be done with their classes, it was mostly just windy.

I am going to digress off topic and add a most strange and unusual story.

Ben and I decided to go to a store to look for curtains for his room.  We looked around the store, then left so I could drop Ben off for his class.  I walked on to the truck….the wind was so brisk, it nearly hurt your head as it parted your hair!

Ben called me over.  I kept walking, turning my head to look at him and he insisted I come to him and look.  I walked over to see him standing in front of a shopping cart.  In the cart was a very expensive looking Etienne Aigner purse.  Ben asked what we should do.  He picked the purse out of the cart, but it was empty, save for one of those tiny silicone packs one finds in new leather goods.

I told Ben to get in the truck and I would take care of the purse.  I dropped Ben off at school, then looked at the purse.  Being a non-smoker, the first thing that struck me was that it smelled….horribly!  The purse was very smoky smelling.

I went back to the store where we had found the purse and asked if anyone was missing a purse or if they sold a purse like that.  Both answers were no.  As I looked at the purse once again, I wondered why every zippered compartment was wide open.  I wondered if the purse had been snatched from someone, so I decided to take it to the police.

I drove to the sherriff’s headquarters.  The woman inside the office told me that the plaza where the purse was found was in the jursdiction of the Canandaigua police department.  I walked over to the city headquarters.  The woman in the office there said the sherriff’s department was who would handle this.  Argh!  The woman at the desk did me a great favor and called to let the deputy know I was coming! (I found out there is a thin line (perhaps literally?) between the city and county jurisdiction in that particular area.)

I walked back to the sherriff’s office and was eventually met by a deputy who took my information.  He asked of I checked with the store where the purse was found and when I told him I did, he said it looked like someone had stolen the purse, then deposited it in the shopping cart.  Interesting…it was very clean inside, but had mud splattered on the outside.  It also smelled terrible.

I laughed and told the deputy I was so dizzy from walking back and forth between the departments, I was considering just taking the purse home and forgetting it!

I told him it looked very much like a purse a store across the highway might sell. He said he would check with them and if they did not claim it,  they would hold it for thirty days, then I could have it.  He said he would call and let me know what happened today but I never heard from him.  I figured the store would be glad to get it back into their inventory if it was stolen from them.  Never having had “sticky fingers”,  I felt funny even holding the purse after the deputy said it looked to him as though it had been stolen!

After my little “runaround” with the strange purse, I just wanted to relax, so I parked by the lake and sat for a long time.  As I sat there, the darkness came in quickly! The rain also began to fall.

Yes, even my phone verified it was raining. hahaha.

When I awakened this morning, the wind was still blowing powerfully.  As I looked out back, the lid from the hot tub was lying about ten feet away from the tub!  I went outside to put it back on and was instantly aware of noise!  It was not just the noise of wind.  It was water. 

As I looked at our trails in the woods, there was water rushing down like wide ribbons wound through the trees!  I woke Ben up and he set to work making sure all the culverts were clear.

Ben had everything in order within about half an hour, raking some sticks and rocks out from ditches.

So…

The weatherman said snow was on the way.

By mid afternoon…

I loved watching the little squirrel eat his lunch. The little bugger nearly disappeared as he “tunneled” through the snow looking for his stash!

Yes, we went from warm and balmy to snow in less than a few hours!

Please realize this is all in good humor! I just thought these photos were kinda funny….

if you will!

Today was a relatively busy day.  I took Michelle down to work with Cindy this morning, then came home.  Mark was a little upset as he couldn’t find the key he was given to use on DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) lands.  He called the fellow in charge and found he could get a replacement by picking it up.  The office is located 40 miles away, but we decided to make the trip.

We needed to get some good cleaner for the Scottie ears as they have been itching some.  That required a trip over to Penn Yan. 

Mark, Ben, and I left this afternoon and headed to Bath for the key.  Shortly after we left home, I realized I had no camera with me.  I had the Panasonic in my hand, but when I went back in the house to get something,  I set it down and rushed back out without it.  Thus, this most beautiful day was photoless.  My heart was crushed….

We picked up the key, then stopped for a Chinese lunch.  We took a slight diversion up into some awesome hills to find an ATV trail system.  It wandered through the hills and around pastures and farmland.  It was a gorgeous trip with amazing sights.

We drove on over to  Penn Yan and I picked up the ear cleaner.  I cleaned each of the boy’s ears and am noticing they have not scratched at their ears since. Hurrah if this works.  The vet tech who spoke to us on the phone earlier wondered about a yeast infection, but there would be an odor associated with that and thankfully, that isn’t the case.

We picked Michelle up at 6:00 this evening and by that time, I was so tired!  Not sure why I felt so run down, but it might have been the stress of camera withdrawal. I’m pretty sure that was it.

I went to bed at about 9:30 and was enjoying a peaceful sleep when Ben came into the room yelling about a power outage.  I laid in bed for a few minutes, wondering why I should care about a power outage.  After all, who cares when one is sleeping?

Mark called our service provider,  Rochester Gas and Electric. (RG&E)  Mark reported the outage, then asked if I would drive up the road to see if anyone else was without power.  I drove up the hill, then down, only to see that we were the sole powerless home. 

Mark made another call to RG&E and spoke with a woman there.  She told Mark that the crew was on their way and they said the transformer might be bad or a fuse at the transformer might have blown.

We waited around. I was thinking the men might come into the house, so I straightened up with my tiny LED flashlight in hand.  I had tried to turn on the main breaker in the basement earlier, but it was a no go.

Probably within half an hour of  Mark’s call, we heard what sounded like a very large truck coming up the hill.  Sure enough,  the truck made its way along, finally honing in on our pole. 

Suddenly, our dark and lightless-at-night road was lit up like a small city!  Needless to say, I ran upstairs….

Yes, even without a fast lens, there was enough light to capture the action! There were two men working down at the pole.  They, of course, talked loudly to communicate, making this whole “event” seem so surreal!

The above was an artistic capture that I really did take on purpose, moving slightly as the image was taken.  I love the result!

So, back to the task at hand.  As the men talked back and forth, there was a noticeable increase in noise.  With the yellow lights on top of the truck flashing,  bright spotlights shining in all directions, and the otherwise pitch black sky with zillions of stars above, this whole setting was like something from a Hollywood movie set!  Honestly, when the noise increased, it sounded like what Hollywood might conjure up for a UFO sound!  I discovered, however, it was something to do with the cherry-picker.  Shortly after the motor noise increased,  I saw the lights rising in the sky.

Our house sits back about 150 feet from the road.  As you can see, when the lights from the cherry-picker shone down from above,  the road was very well lighted! (Wonder what the neighbors across the road might have thought?)

Well, finally, the truck came up the driveway.  Notice the lack of lights!  And believe me,  the headlights on this truck were bright!

I lit my little flashlight and one of the men appeared and told me the fuse at the pole had “popped”.   I hurried downstairs to turn on the main breaker.  As soon as the lights came on, the big truck backed on down the driveway, leaving before I even made it back upstairs from the basement!

Mark laughed, thinking these fellows probably attend to such activities all night long.  We never got to ask what caused or why the fuse popped, but we wondered if the overabundant rain might have played a part in all this.

After all the excitement of the night,  I am finding myself no longer tired.  Oh well, I will try to rest. In the meantime,  I am so grateful for people who work the night shift, helping us to keep the power flowing!

Oh, and one more thing….the night sky was just absolutely stunning tonight!  As I stood looking up, I realized I would have missed seeing this had the power not gone out…just another one of those blessings in disguise!

Hmm….

In thinking back, a few years ago, we got a call from a neighbor about half a mile up the road.  They had seen a bear walking on their property and it ws headed in our direction.  They were calling to make sure wedidn’t have our Scotties outside.

Our neighbor immediately up the hill from us called one February afternoon to say that they saw a bear walking on their driveway towards our house.

While house sitting a house not too far from us, a bizarre thing happened.  I had noticed a large nest of paper wasps living under the deck. I didn’t think anything more about it until a couple of weeks later.  As I walked around the house,  I noticed a hole in a board on the deck.  I went down and looked…sure enough, the wasp nest was gone.  The hole looked like “something” had scratched it.  Upon looking around,  I discovered a small pile of animal waste.  It looked rather “seedy”, so I took my camera and photographed it.  Sure enough, when the homeowners came home, the husband (a hunter) said the photo was of “bear scat”.

One day when I talked to our neighbor across the road, she said she awakened one night.  In looking out the bedroom window, she saw something very large moving down below.

How could all of our neighbors have seen bears and I’ve not seen one?  Not fair, say I!

Well, if all of the above is just heresay,  how about this?

I took these photos “just around the corner” from our house.  Our land isn’t too far away from DEC land. (Department of Environmental Conservation)  Yes, the map above says it all.   Our area is prime for bear hunting. 

Gosh, that makes me feel so much better!  Here we were, traipsing about all over,  wondering if we would see a bear in the Adirondacks and we have them living in our own backyard!

When we were traveling home after viewing the fireworks display in Canandaigua on the night of July 4th,  we saw a most awesome *home* display as we drove down Route 21.  There were people gathered around a bonfire and fireworks were going up rather rapidly.  We paused a moment and couldn’t believe people could/would spend a small fortune on such an elaborate home display.  We did think back, though, to the evening of the 3rd, when it seemed like every family on Conesus Lake was igniting fireworks…there was no way they could have afforded to hire that many licensed pyrotechnicians.  We merely reasoned that on the 4th, the police just kind of turn their heads the other way so long as no one is seriously injured.

That said,  it is illegal to light fireworks in the state of New York.  I certainly would not desire to do it, let alone be caught!

So,  back to the home previously mentioned.  They have had the same “stack” of stuff sitting at the end of their driveway for maybe a week?  We saw it there before we left for Sabres Development Camp last Tuesday.  Ben assured us of that….

So, knowing the very essence of fireworks, would *you* willfully place these “leftovers” into your waste management truck?  Hmm…I am thinking perhaps the employees of their waste disposal company are  thinking the same!

Oh, Mark said if this was his mess, he would have burned it!  I mean, police vehicles do travel this route, after all!  And, I do believe there must be some logical explanation! Bet it raises a lot of eyebrows, though!

Yes, while it really isn’t *much*,  it certainly *is* early!

Last night, on our way home after shopping, Michelle and I  saw some snow in the air.  It was nothing to worry about, though, as it was harmlessly falling and melting.

Last night,  after taking the Scotties out, I had to run and grab my camera because the dusting of snow was so pretty!

Well, perhaps the bush was pretty,  but my  Mums didn’t look quite as pretty.

Those Mums are so impressive this year!  I received the pink ones last year from my mother-in-law.  They came in a tiny four inch pot.  When I transplanted them into the ground,  I was doubtful they would grow,  but they are actually bigger around than a bushel basket!  The rust-colored ones grew astronomically as well!

This morning when I opened my eyes,  although it was dark out,  it seemed kind of “bright”.

Let me assure you, snow in our neck of the woods in October is very unusual!  It does make for some interesting photos, though!

The bush continued to disappear this morning……

I went and got my little Panasonic camera because it has such a wide angle.  Here is our front “yard”…..

I repeatedly bemoan our  annual autumnal “monsoons”  as the rain prematurely strips all color from the trees each year!  This year should be different!  Not sure if this snow will remove the leaves,  but it really makes for bizarre conditions!

Explorer?  Where for art thou?

Looking out back is impressive….the tall trees look even taller in their snowy shroud!

I  understand the weather is much worse to our south.  It seems utility lines have gone down under the weight of the sloppy, wet snow!  

As I came back into the house from outside,  I heard a little Chickadee call out to me.  Instead of the cheerful little “chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee”  I typically hear from these sweet little birds,  I am positive it call “feed me-me-me-me”!  I did so….immediately!

Now, to curl up with a hot cup of tea and listen to the radio…..

Yesterday,  both Michelle and I were up and “at ‘em” at about 5 am.  I have to admit….I was pretty tired!  But, as Michelle bustled about, getting ready for school,  I picked things up and put them away.  I made her a sandwich to take along to school for lunch and then we were off to school.

I dropped Michelle off  and then headed over to WalMart.  I needed to return a lamp I had bought and pick up a lightbulb for the cabinet we inherited from my father-in-law.  I grazed through the store,  taking my time and just enjoying  not being rushed by anyone or anything. 

After purchasing a few items, I made my way back to the Explorer.  As I was just a few feet from the vehicle,  I looked down just as I stepped into the puddle…..

It took several seconds for my sleep-deprived brain and bleary eyes to realize the wee little “croc” was one that dangled and fallen from someone’s keychain!