Waiting for winter

 

Well, in the interest of keeping this blog somewhat current, I thought I'd make a post just to let everybody know what's going on, even if there hasn't been a whole lot of note happening.

 

It's now late November.  We've had a little snow this month, but it has alternated with rain so there's not a lot of snow on the ground.  There's nothing worse than clearing wet soggy snow in 34 degrees and rain. 

 

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving.  Feral didn't seem to enjoy it as much as we thought she would--she's not normally allowed on the table.

We did have a bat eating insects keep us entertained as he flew along the boardwalk for a couple hours.

We've had a lot of Marten activity.  This is a photo Jen took of the guy who hangs around the dock.  There are now at least three living in Christine's store (about half a mile from us).  We've been working with Keith and Jackie (the town caretakers) to try to get them out of the store and relocated.  We can't see how they're getting in, but they're having a hell of a time ripping things up in the store.

 

We have a room we use as a walk-in refrigerator that we call the "cold room".  It's actually a mud room that attaches to the kitchen.  There is a screen door to the outside that has sort of a faulty latch.  One evening, I heard a thump from the cold room and went in to check.  By the time I got the door open, the marten was outside on the steps looking back at me as I started picking up my leftover halibut enchiladas.  We are trying to keep a better eye on the latch, but a few days later we found 4 hard-boiled eggs missing from the carton.  A few days after that, I went to grab a flour tortilla and discovered that the whole package had gone awol.

 

Baking day before a dinner with our neighbors Christine and town caretakers Keith and Jackie.

Sourdough bread and rhubarb/blueberry pie.

Jen showing off her winter supply of popcorn.

This is an early shot of our woodpile....can't have too many wood photos!

This low-res photo won't make Jen the perfectionist happy, but demonstrates the technique of paddling by brail.  I've never gotten lost using this method, although the shore side paddle can get a little beat up.