Elastic Snow, Part II

As the snow melted last weekend on our neighbor's roof, it slid off into this delicious pile of wrinkles.  I thought it was a nice p.s. to the previous post and discussion on the elasticity of snow:

Cool, huh?  It looks like a giant blanket.  Except a lot colder.

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Living for Maine

In the drear days of early March, I typically have a hard time dealing with the wintertime blues.  It's still snowy, but it's largely turned into ugly icy snert and is no longer a pretty pillowy whiteness.  The days are getting longer, but it's still dark when I get home.  Skies, at least in Syracuse, are gray, gray, gray.  And I'm mighty sick of being cold.

So what's the perfect remedy?  Planning one's summer vacation, of course! 

I love to travel, but have a very limited vacation budget.  Whatever we squirrel away for vacation budget always seems to get spent on, say, car repairs instead.  And really, most of the time I'm tired of chaos and people and electronic things that buzz and ding, so the idea of traveling to a foreign city or popular travel destination doesn't seem that relaxing to me anyway.

Last summer my husband and I took the first (yes, first) vacation we've ever taken together, with just the two of us and no other family members.  Up until last summer, the biggest trip we'd taken without family was one happy weekend in Toronto that was sponsored by my father quite a number of years ago, and another long weekend autumn camping trip that involved torrential rain and wind and nearly freezing to death. 

My husband and I?  Yeah.  We've been together for more than 10 years now.  No, we never had a honeymoon.  That's what happens when you get married as a broke law student and graduate with zillions of dollars in student loans and then opt for a job in Upstate New York instead of a big city where the pay is high enough to pay off those loans.  Oh well.  I wouldn't trade Syracuse for New York City for anything - certainly not for 5-star resort vacations.

My entire goal in planning our vacation last year was to go somewhere where we would not have any kind of cell phone signal.  Oh, and the dogs had to come too.  I went to college in Maine and love the rugged Maine coast, so ultimately opted for a quiet camping vacation in Downeast Maine (a.k.a. as far north and east as you can go in the U.S.), at Cobscook Bay State Park.

It was a blissful vacation.  We were only there for about 6 days, which was not long enough, but was magnificent nonetheless. 

On the surface, it's hard to understand why the trip was so wonderful.  We broke up our drive into two parts on the way there, since it's an 11 hour drive.  The first night we set up the tent in a campground near Freeport, Maine in pouring rain and sucking mosquitoes.  All my exposed flesh, which was thankfully just my face and hands, was completely covered in bites by the time we got in the tent.  We then slept - quite literally - in a puddle.  My old cheap tent that I had bought when I was in high school had called it quits in spectacular fashion.  The next morning we completely blew our vacation budget and purchased a new tent at L.L. Bean before continuing on our way north.

The weather stunk for most of the trip.  It was cool, rained a whole lot, and we endured an impressive Nor'easter on the second or third day.  Thankfully, the new L.L. Bean tent withstood the hurricane-force winds and torrential downpours with nary a drop inside.  Bless L.L. Bean!

The mosquitoes were truly awful.  Last summer it rained the entire month before our trip in Maine - every single day.  Our first evening in Cobscook Bay at dusk, I heard an ominous whine coming from the woods and told my husband we had about 5 minutes to get into the tent or be borne aloft by the mosquitoes.  He said no, there was no way on earth that weird whine was coming from mosquitoes.  Ha!  Five minutes later I laughed uproariously from behind the screen windows of the tent while my spouse swatted and danced his way around the site trying to brush his teeth.  I had met Maine mosquitoes before.

But honestly, weather and skeeters didn't really matter at all.  They just added a little color.

(Pardon the quality of these photos - they were taken with a very old crummy digital point and shoot.)

Our camp site was down a 1/8 mile path through the woods and over the bridge.

We couldn't see anyone from our site except for wildlife.  Our view:

We could sit on our little point of land for hours if we chose, and just watch the 20-some-odd foot tide changes.  Cobscook Bay is part of the Bay of Fundy, known for its huge tide changes.  This is the same spot at low tide and high tide:

We explored nearby parks, including Campobello Island where FDR spent many happy vacations, and the Quoddy Head State Park with its amazing bogs and tide pools.

The local villages were quaint, lovely and friendly, and filled with artists.

The best part, though, was that we did not have to see other humans unless we wanted to.  We spent time running with the dogs through the woods, and discovered that trail running is way more fun that other kinds of running.

Many of the trails were rugged and rocky, and completely enticing.  Once we started down one we had to keep going to see where it led.  We hiked until exhausted and starving, and then ate amazing seafood bought fresh from the docks. 

The dogs thought they had discovered Paradise.  See?  Lucy just hated it - can't you tell? 

I slept very well the whole time.  My husband slept less well because he - I make no exaggeration here - slept with both dogs inside his sleeping bag with him.  They had a nice comfy bed next to him in the tent, but would have none of it.  I'd wake up in the morning and laugh at Lucy sleeping with only her head showing, resting on my husband's neck, and Simon's tail peeking out next to his head.  Apparently they knew better than to try to crawl in with me.  I'd have plunked them right back on their own comfy bed in a heartbeat.

All we've been able to talk about since is going back to Maine.  We just did not get enough.  There were tons more trails we didn't get the chance to hike, and want to experience it all again anyhow.  So I just booked 9 nights in Cobscook Bay State Park for mid-July.  This time I shall take a better camera, better trail running shoes, and my Conte pencils and drawing paper aplenty.  I shall also spend some time thinking creatively about how to provide my poor long-suffering spouse with a sleeping bag that will better fit a full grown human and two lumpy ridiculous Basset hounds.

The countdown is on:  19 weeks to go.

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Eviction Notice

For those of you who have been breathlessly following my skunk saga, well, you can't possibly be as breathless as I feel after last night's stench fest.  Egad!  The thing is getting smellier!

After several successive nights of peace, we woke up at 4:00 a.m. gasping for air.  At first we though the house was on fire because it didn't really smell like skunk, it smelled like burning tires.  But a thorough investigation of the house confirmed that it was indeed just Pierre & Co., smelling to high heaven in their peaceful hidey-hole under our dining room.  Any skunk experts out there have an explanation for how he can smell different?

Last night did it.  Pierre is getting his eviction notice tonight.  The order, warrant and judgment were issued by this olfactory Judge, and will be served by the U.S. Marshall (a.k.a. my husband) tonight.  The warrant will be in the form of vinegar soaked rags, coyote calls, booming bass, bright lights, and anything else we can think of to drive the little booger out.  Once he's out, the holes are getting boarded/chicken wired/stoned up.

I just hope we don't accidentally close anyone in there if we close it off after one skunk leaves.  There's the chance there's more than one stinky skunk residing in the deep hole that's been dug into the dirt under the crawl space.  Just in case we accidentally close one in, we're setting a live trap down there loaded with cat food.  I don't think one is supposed to transport any animal that can carry rabies, but if we catch one I'm bending the rule and transporting him succinctly to my property line.

God help me, my house smelled so badly of skunk last night that I keep catching whiffs of it here in my office this morning.  My clothing is permeated with the smell, which is impressive given that my clothing is on the second floor, and Pierre stank below the first floor.  I keep waiting for people's noses to wrinkle as they step into my office...

Ick!

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Squirrel Mecca

I love these photos.  My Dad sent them to me - they show his front stairs and his driveway:

The question they bring to my mind is, how many gray squirrels can one man have in his yard?

I don't know the answer for certain, but I know it's A Whole Lot.  My Dad's yard has sort of inadvertently become the neighborhood squirrel mecca.  Most of the time if you look out in his back yard, there are a dozen or so birds at the feeders, and nearly as many squirrels on the ground under the feeders looking for dropped seeds.

For years when I was a kid the squirrels were sort of the enemy because they'd get into the bird feeders.  It's amazing just how quickly one lowly gray squirrel can reduce an expensive bird feeder to a pile of little plastic shavings.

It took my Dad years to figure out the ultimate squirrel baffle for the feeder pole.  He tried live trapping and relocating squirrels, who I swear just came back no matter how far we transported them.  I think he gave up on that tactic when it seemed as though 3 squirrels moved in for each one he removed.  He tried all sorts of other measures to discourage them from getting into the feeders, including greasing the pole to deter them from climbing it.  Grease didn't work, but ultimately it turned out he just needed the right shape and size of baffle on the pole, which he ultimately discovered through trial and error.

Despite the years-long battle, somehow the gray squirrels seemed to grow on him over the years.  I totally get why.  I have a hard time being in a bad mood while watching a squirrel.  They're such neurotic, daft, jolly little creatures, with their twitching tails and happy hopping.

Dad long ago gave up on trying to evict the gray squirrels from his yard.  He knows a few of the regulars and can tell them apart.  He takes pains to feed extra goodies to the ones who have mange (as evidenced by their bare naked little rat-like tails) to help them stay warm through the winter.  He's had squirrels with all sorts of injuries from cars, dogs, cats and each other, and squirrels with seemingly strange neurological problems, like the one who would slowly tip over to the side whenever he tried to sit upright.  He was quite charming, in a sad sort of way.

I swear the word is out in the entire Central New York gray squirrel community that if you're in bad shape, go to my Dad's house.  The pickings are good there.  Whenever I look at the squirrels we run into anywhere on our hikes, I'm always struck by how skinny they look compared with the robust ones in my Dad's yard.

He's also had quite a number of squirrels who come running toward him when he goes out to fill the bird feeders.  It didn't take them long to learn who keeps peanuts in his pockets along with his spare change.  For a while he had one who, when he was hungry, would climb up on the deck and launch himself at the kitchen window, sticking to the screen like velcro.  The sound he made when he hit that screen would make me jump just about out of my skin. 

For a while he had another (or perhaps even the same one) who, whenever someone opened the back door, would come running full tilt at the storm door and launch himself at it, hitting it with a thunderous bang and sticking to it.  I have no idea what that little fellow found to stick to on the smooth metal door.  The squirrel hitting the screen on the window was amusing, but the one who launched himself seemingly at you to land on the door was straight up disconcerting.

Any time anyone opens the garage doors at his house, a search of the garage is advisable before closing the door again.  A squirrel has gotten trapped in there more than once, that's for sure.  Although given the amount of black oil sunflower seed in the garage, it's not like they'd starve in there - they'd just make a mess.

Dad suffers them all with grace and good humor.  Even when they chew on his deck and scare the dickens out of him by launching at windows and doors at high velocity, the worst he'll say to them is "Shoo!  Stop that!"  Judging by the numbers of squirrels in his yard, he apparently never says it convincingly enough for the little ruffians to stop their antics for more than a few minutes.  They know they've got it good.

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