A Laid Back Affair–August 9-12

It’s the 2nd weekend of August and time for the NNMC’s Annual ALBA Motorcycle Rally.

Here is me at ALBA just back from a ride in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. 

Another happy rider after a Saturday ride.

The Affair is pretty evenly split between Harley and BMW riders.

There were Fellas on Harleys

There were Ladies on BMWs

There were Old Riders on Old Bikes

There were New Passengers on New Bikes

This Fella & his BMW have travelled the gravel roads of Alaska

There was even a dual sport machine that rode in on its own personal van – with its own personal driver, I mean rider of course.

There was tire filling time.

And tire kicking time

And just hanging out time

Our Founder JP was there with his Amazing Door Prizes and irascible wit

My Camp just I got everything set up.

Oh it rained some, and there was a very annoying dog that barked all Friday night but all in all it  was A GREAT AFFAIR.

N.B. to all my friends – I don’t put much in the way of names in my blog – you all are my personal friends but the Interwebs is not a private place.  So Googling your name won’t bring up some photo or blog text I’ve posted.  Hugs to you all though.

Little Brown Bats as Summer People

So last May 18 to 22 Little Brown Bats started using the louvers in the eaves on the kitchen side of the house as their daytime roost of choice.  They had 16 to 20 babies (its kinda hard to get an exact count of critters 12 feet up and sleeping all snuggled together in an inch wide space) born during the month.

This little lady decided to sleep hanging outside the louvers so I was able to take her picture.  Most the bats were a bit darker than this one, although there was one that was a much lighter yellow-brown.

These interwebs shots will give an idea of what I could watch in the late evening and early morning hours around my house.    They would leave to go bug hunting starting around 7:30 pm, come and go all night as they tended their young and return for the day just before sunrise.

I would sit on my porch or stand next to my van and watch them leave for the night.  It was like watching a flight deck clear on an aircraft carrier.  The little ones started flights of their own at around 4 weeks of age.  They flew to the trees around my yard and then took short flights to other trees before going back to the louvers.  After a week to 10 days their flights were much longer but they weren’t as acrobatic as their mothers.  They also seemed to stay within easy sight of the roost.

The return flights to the roost were simply awesome to watch.  I’d go outside about an hour and a half before sunup and sit with a cup of coffee in my lawn chair.  The first bats would come from the trees around a 100 yards away to the northeast.  They were still in hunting mode and would do aerials over the yard catching bugs.  There might be 6 to 8 at a time flying over and around each other snatching up bugs.  Then first one than another would fly up to the louvers, hold on for a second and then fly off again for more bugs.  This would go on until just before actual sunrise, then they would land and move into the louvers to sleep. 

Another shot of the Hanging Out Bat

As July moved towards August it got harder and harder to tell the young bats from the mature bats.  By the end of July I could no longer see a clear size or flight style difference.  The morning come in flights just got better and better too.  By the end of July there were as many as 18 bats at once flying over my house and yard, doing the land and takeoff thing and then finally moving into the roost.  Then the numbers started to taper off.  My friend Jane was here by then and she got to enjoy 3 nights and morning of bat flights too but we saw small groups of 4 to 6 bats at once.

Then on the morning of August 2nd I got up to watch the morning flight and there was no morning flight.  Oh a half dozen bats flew out of the woods and over the house but no one came to the roost.  The bats were clearly in hunting mode and were flying over my house and yard like any other looking for bugs to catch.  The young had been weaned, reached adolescence and so the breeding colony had dispersed.  Now it was time to fatten up for the winter and that could best be done by spreading out over a much wider area.  Still I miss watching them en mass and checking on the colony.  I am planning on building a bat house over the winter and putting it in place come spring. 

Critters of Summer

OK, I admit it – I’m a critter junkie.  One of my greatest pleasures in life is watching God’s Critters.  I’m not fussy about what kind of critters, sparrows and eagles are all the same to me.  I even like watching hornets and yellow jackets – from a safe distance with binoculars of course but enjoy watching them none the less.

Its been a very good year for Critters too.  The rabbits have been much in evidence in the yard, mostly in the clover patches near the forsythia hedge.

The Praying Mantis hatched as usual at the end of May on the iris near the driveway and on the white pines.  They’re only about 3/8 of an inch long when they hatch.

By mid-July they’re right around 2 inches long.  At this point they disperse all around my yard and are much harder to find.  Probably much harder for hungry birds to find too.  By late August they will have wings and be ready to breed.

This is the 2nd turtle to visit my yard this year.  There are around half a dozen individuals that pop up in my yard from time to time.  I generally find them in the back yard when I check it before I mow.

This is a male Five-lined skink, Eumeces fasciatus, just over 6 inches long.  I’ve seen these in my back yard around the Norfolk pine stump, but these year he was very much in evidence on the wood pile just outside my kitchen door.  His orange colored head means its breeding season.

There were also 2 females in evidence; one about a half inch shorter then the male and one about 4.5 inches the long with a stubby tail.  The 3 Kitchen Skinks were very much in evidence from late April until Memorial Day Weekend, then they disappeared.  Stubby Tail had regrown most of her tail when I last saw her.

Then in mid July 6 to 8 of these little fellows showed up in the wood pile and on my kitchen porch.  When I first saw them they had about an inch of body and an inch and a quarter of tail.  I guess the mating went well.   A big male is also again in evidence around the Norfolk stump.

This nice little lady was in my yard when I came back from a grocery store run.  There have been an higher than usual number of deer tracks in the mud along the woods line too.  However, the deer seem to have seriously chowed down on the jewel weed that grows at the back of my yard.  So I haven’t been able to see as many hummingbirds this summer.  The Hummers really really like jewel weed.

Summer Projects

Events at Da Urchin’s place have occupied a fair number of my days off but that doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten any of my own projects done.

I bought this Class IV hitch and a wiring harness for my mule last January. I cleaned the road dirt off the van’s frame, held the hitch in place with a 2x6 laid across 2 pails and bolted everything together. The wiring harness didn’t come with any instructions but a YouTube video posted by a RV dealer fixed that. Now I can actually use the motorcycle and utility trailers I own.

Both of my Lodge Dutch ovens got rusty in storage.  I soaked them in white vinegar which removed the rust, washed them in hot water, dried them in the oven and then re-seasoned them both before painting the exteriors with Hi-Temp BBQ paint.

I got this trailer from Gypsy Jane who got it from Blacksmith Joe who built it. 

The top and one side of the plywood were showing their age.  I could rip pieces of rotten plywood off with my bare hands.  The box has been taken apart and removed from the trailer - a task with involved removing a jillion screws, several large bolts and the brackets the 2x4 supports rest in.

The flooring is still sound, so now I have a useable flatbed trailer.  I plan on mounting a standard A-frame ball mount, replacing the side mount tongue wheel with an in-tongue model, painting the frame and installing stake bed sides.  So I’m about half way there.

I’ve also gotten several more boxes of stuff sorted through, taken 2 boxes of clothes to Goodwill, trimmed various bushes in my yard and finished sewing snaps on my canvas tent door flaps so I can keep the sod flaps up out of the way as needed. 

And since all work and no play make for a very dull day I’ve also hunted out some good fishing places near my place.  No I won’t tell you exactly where they are, they’re My Fishing Holes if you get my drift.  But they hold decent sunfish and are quiet places to sit, fish and watch the world go by.  Which is what I’m about to do right now. 

Happy Birthday to the US of A

Urchin had planned a house warming party on the 4th but as my faithful readers know a bodacious storm blow the party right off the calendar.  Da Urchin and I seemed to be the only party folks with power so all of the potential party attendees were taking care of business.  I drove up on the 3rd after work and got more down tree cut up.   Don and Dolores arrived with a 2nd chain saw on the 4th and 2 of the neighbors came over with a chain saw too so the tree was reduced to a nice stack of wood by early afternoon

Don & Dolores

So the 4 of us had a nice quiet little July 4th party.  We watched the birds come to the veranda  birdfeeders, we chatted about all kinds of things, we played with Urchin’s cats, we chilled in the AC.  Just before dark we went to the local convenience store and got excellent subs and sandwiches made to order at pleasant prices.  We even got a few fireworks off before the thunderstorm drove us back inside.

It was a glorious day spent with family and friends.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

Nasty Ugly Storm

June 29th was a hot and muggy day so Sensible Me slept during the heat of the day with the intention of staying up very late and working on the Guest-Room-To-be.  I’d gotten up around 5pm, gone grocery shopping, mowed the yard and just finished a most pleasant fried fish dinner when the wind started to kick up a bit.  Then it kicked up a great bit more.  Paws-in-Trouble, my black cat who only comes in the house when its cold or the weather is otherwise truly abysmal, came running up to the kitchen door and DEMANDED to be let in as the wind got really really serious.  I could hear trees cracking and breaking but as it was full dark I couldn’t see much.  The power flickered off, then on, then off again and stayed off.  Other than the lighting and weird reddish flashing off to the north (the power substation took a direct hit) there was no sign of power on anywhere.  Not much rain, just an very scary cosmic light show and near hurricane winds. 

My phone jingled just as the weather was moving off – my Urchin’s new-to-her house, the one she’d been in for barely 2 months had taken a tree to the roof.  A big tree to the roof, with water poring down the kitchen ceiling, the the back kitchen wall and into down the basement.  She still had power, it was storming outside to beat the band at her place and I’m on my laptop at my place in the dark trying to find her home owner’s insurance 800 claim number via my laptop.  If it hadn’t been so serious it would have been funny.

Urchin’s Battered House

My house came through it all with nothing more than leaf debris in the yard and no power.  Urchin’s place had a tree trunk on her roof, major holes in the roof, damage to the roof ridge and some rafters, a broken window, a shorted out kitchen light fixture, cracks in the kitchen ceiling drywall sheets, water damage to the ceiling and 2 walls, a hole in the side of the house just under roof’s ridgeline, a damaged rear gutter and a very big puddle of water in the basement.   Plus some stray pieces of tree in the yard and one the rear deck.  The car was fine, she was fine, the pets were freaked out but fine and she had power.

Urchin’s boyfriend JR came out, moved the tree parts off the roof and put plastic tarps over the damage.  JR is a most wonderful boyfriend.  The insurance company called Monday, the adjuster was there Wednesday and I’m impressed.  The Urchin did decide to cancel her house warming party on the 4th, she felt she had enough on her plate with the house damage.  And she needed to find a contractor to fix things.

Smashed the Roof but Missed the Power Line

Meanwhile back at my place I was straightening up my kitchen and getting ready to drive down to Lynchburg.  My friend Gypsy Jane had a tree hit her RV so I was going to help her out.  Fortunately she didn’t end up needing much help.  I picked up a box in my kitchen, the bottom started to give way, I pushed the bottom back in place and thereby pushed a #2 treble fish hook all the way past the barb into my finger.  So I sat down, realized this was not something I could remove on my own, carefully unscrewed the hook from its lure and drove to the UVA hospital ER. 

US 29 south was a mess – trees and tree debris everywhere.  There were power crews working on down power lines and DOT crews removing roadway obstructions.  And there was no power, 3/4 of C’ville was sans electricity.  Fortunately UVA hospital has its own generators.  Several of them actually.  It took 2 hours, 3 shots of Novocain, 2 doctors, 1 intern and a tetanus shot but my right index finger was finally treble hook free.  I don’t want to think yet about what this will cost me.

My next task was to find some gas – I only has 3 or 4 gallons in my tank at this point.  Remember the no power in 3/4 of C’ville?  Well there was also no interwebs or land line phones in any of C’ville.  So gas stations with power still couldn’t pump gas if their pumps were net run and they couldn’t process ATM cards.  I finally found a good ol boy Exxon station with power, non-digital pumps and a manual credit/check card machine.  Thank You Jesus for low tech.

Tank filled, car charger for my cell phone acquired, I headed down to Gypsy Jane’s rig.  The campground had lost its main power line to a tree but the wadding in the water was wonderfully cooling and there was a delightful breeze all day.  The damage to her rig wasn’t too bad either.   I drove home that evening much refreshed although I still had no power at my house.  And the just bought frozen fish and chicken were toast. 

Sunday I headed to the Urchin’s place with my chainsaw.  She had power.  She had AC.  She had cold fluids.  I hadn’t slept well, what with the heat, no electricity and my very sore finger.  So I hydrated up at Da Urchin’s, napped for a few hours in her AC and then earned my keep by cutting up about half of tree trunk pieces.  I pulled in my driveway around 11:30pm to the welcome glow of my porch light.  Things are definitely looking up.

 

Hot & Hazy But Not Very Lazy June

It stayed hot for a week after the SLR Rendezvous but projects still proceeded on their merry little way.   Well OK, the projects inched along very very slowly with heat, humidity and rain impeding things every step of the way.  But inch along they did.

I had gone through my tools before Urchin’s major move in day and put together a decent maintenance tool set for her.  Now I loaned her first my 6 ft. ladder and then the 12 ft. one so she could change light bulbs, mount curtain & shower rods and the like.  I crawled up the 12 ft. ladder and cleaned out the rear gutter so it would drain properly and Urchin reinstalled the downspout once the thick layer of decayed plant material had dried out and blown (or been washed) away.  I also repositioned the cement pieces that go at the bottom of the downspout so that the water doesn’t make a muddy ditch in the yard. 

Her yard was looking good after its second mowing so my mower came home and I got my yard looking decent too.  There were a bunch of woody bushes on the hill behind the Urchin’s place that just had to go.  They didn’t show any signs of producing berries for the critters but they did have many many little quarter inch long thorns all over.  A good lopper and hand ax took care of them all.   (The ones down near the road will follow sometime this fall.)  My Thompson Water Seal sprayer has moved to the Urchin’s permanently and got used to do the underside of the veranda.  The back deck and veranda will get sprayed again in late September or early October.   Water is beading up on the wood nicely now but after 3 years of no maintenance a second treatment before winter seems in order.

Back at my place I first attacked the crawl space.  The last of the metal shed pieces have been recycled and various other pieces of junk have been hauled away.  Then I sorted through the boxes in the Urchin’s old bedroom.  A van load of stuff went to her house including her long misplaced DVD collection, a VHS/DVD player and a largish TV.  I’ve still got more work to do in her old room but its about 3/4 done and thus well on its way to being a guest room.  I also did some more work in my room – got the CD’s moved into the going-to-be guest room, the DVDs into the front room and the maple bookcase into my bedroom plus added pegs for 2 more bows to my bedroom wall.  I even got the fishing gear all together, cleaned all the rods and reels, put new line on my freshwater spinning & casting reels, sorted out my tackle box, and took my Urchin’s fishing gear and a tackle box of basic stuff to her place.

Somewhere in there I also drove up & visited D&D.  We had a grand time complete with a dinner at the Kabob Tavern in Vienna.  The Kabob Tavern is a wonderful little family run place and I plan on eating there again when I’m down that way.

About mid month I moved into the 21st century.  I started looking into adding texting to my cell, decided I would like some data too and started comparison shopping.  The best deal I could find was with Virgin Mobile.  For $35 a month I get the same number of minutes I had on my nTelos plan plus unlimited text and date.  (I also lost no-minute cell-to-cell and unlimited nights and weekends.)  Now texting was going to mean a new phone since texting on a phone with a alpha-numeric pad is an exercise in frustration.  Target had this nice Samsung Intercept at a price I could afford.  Yes an iPhone is spiffy and yes there are very cool fancier Androids out there, but if I wanted that many bells and whistles I’d get a tablet with a bigger screen and a smaller price tag.  The Intercept has a decent screen, is fast enough for the limited applications I use (weather, maps, bank balances etc.) and slides open to a wonderful keyboard with a nice tactile feel.  The battery is handling my usage just fine  - I charge it once a day when I’m sleeping.  And for those of you who want to know, the screen photo is my name-day patron St. Susanna of Palestine.