04 October

Enjoying What the Bears and Birds Missed


Daddy-O and I started to winterize around the Girdwood house. Snow on the top of Max’s Mountain Saturday morning is one of our annual signs to shift our seasonal lifestyle. We drained and unhooked the garden hose, dried and stowed the mountain bikes, emptied the terracotta planters and put the picnic table under shelter so it doesn’t get plowed into matchsticks by the front end loader that manages our snow load in the parking area. We were also on squirrel patrol, since Kelly, one of our renters mentioned there is a squirrel now running back and forth in her bedroom ceiling (probably stashing pine cones for winter) which is between our upper unit and the ground level unit…not good.  Sealing off some probable entrance points in the old logs on the side of the house and knowing my husband as I do, the squirrel doesn’t stand a chance! Winterizing only lasted so long as the beauty of Fall overtook us. Before long we were all playing in our woods eating the sweetened blueberries that the Bears and Birds missed, explored the upended root den of a huge fallen Evergreen, found new growth Hemlocks and generally appreciating the vibrant colors of Fall. Tauzer Schnauzer chased critters, chewed sticks and was just glad to be a Girdwood Dog. We laughed at all the grass seed and Blueberry bush leaves that had stuck to her. We even thought she was cute all stinky and rain soaked, until I noticed that the brown thing on the top of her forehead wasn’t a leaf at all, it was a gross SLUG! 

8 comments:

cookingwithgas said...

Winter! It just can't be.
We had a nest of bladfaced hornets build in our attic above our kitchen. I kept wondering what the buzzing noise was.
We had to seal them in and it did not smell too good for a few days.
We have had two squirrels in our house and they can make a mess out of anything!
Enjoy those last taste of summer- Snow!NO!

cookingwithgas said...

shoot- that would be BALDFACED hornets-

Orion Designs said...

Sounds like a great weekend ... except for the SLUG! ew

Linda Starr said...

Um, wild blueberries. I love a damp wet forest, looks like fun, at least it wasn't one of those banana slugs. The little plant with berries looks like American ginseng. We just packed up our storage shed and found a huge rat in there, when we went back to look he was gone. Seems he liked nesting in my boxes I saved to pack pottery, ugh.

cindy shake said...

Sounds like all the earth's critter's are winterizing!

Thank goodness our Yellowjacket nest did not return and you are so right Meredith, squirrels are VERY destructive. This isn't the first time we've had to "patrol."

I think the red berry is from a Dogwood, Linda. At least that's what the Dogwood leaves look like and they get these pretty white flowers. Eeeeeek RATS!!??! I would have freaked out! We did catch and watch a huge Banana Slug at my folks house this summer in WA. I thought it was a big piece of poop on the walking path!! Thank goodness Tauzer didn't have one of those on her head is right!!

Gary's third pottery blog said...

a slug on your schnauzer?????

Anonymous said...

Tauzer, DUDE, Bob the boxer in Maine here! WOW looks like you had an awesome time. Isn't being outside wild and free the best??? I'm going to tell all my Maine buddies about Girdwood because my mom said something about me winning sticker. I'll have her put it on MY truck. But that is an awesome picture of you Dude...hope you slept well.

Later,
BOB the boxer in Maine

Anonymous said...

Tauzer me again, BOB...I call girls and boys DUDE....Don't be offended we're dogs;)