Last night just as we were preparing dinner, Hailey started barking and looking out the sliding screen door in the sun room. We looked out and didn’t see anything and told her to be quiet. A few minutes later she was barking again. This time I stepped outside on the deck to take a look. Sure enough, I saw a big black object down by the back fence in the woods. I went to get the binoculars to take a better look and when I got back the object had moved. Yes, for sure: a bear. A big one. It was on the inside of the fence, in our yard and seemed very intent on eating or digging something up. It must have heard us talking, but didn’t even raise its head.

Rick pulled out the grill and we continued with our dinner plans, all the while having a bear in our woodsy yard munching away on his dinner. Life here is so weird sometimes and what is even stranger is that it doesn’t seem all that strange to us to have it include bears at close range.

Today would have been my mom’s 84th birthday. Happy Birthday Mom wherever you are. We still miss you like crazy. It hardly seems possible you’ve been gone from us for three years now.

Bella, sweet Bella, turned two years old yesterday. She got toys and bones. She was like a little kid going from one to the other.

My friend Carolyn arrives later today to spend the weekend with us. Included in our plans are the Renaissance Faire tomorrow (so I am airing out my wench costume), canoeing on Green Turtle Pond, attending our neighborhood block party for a while on Sunday and hopefully taking a dip in the pool since it’s supposed to be hot again. A full and fun weekend!

We’ve had four days of rain in a row this week with yesterday finally clearing up and being lovely and should continue to be so through most of next week. It’s supposed to be back in the mid 80’s again. The difference is that instead of getting in to the high 60’s at night, it now dips down to the 50’s. The pool does not like 50 degree nights. No sireee. It didn’t like all that lovely rain either. So, it remains to be seen if we are brave enough (and hot enough) to get into 72 degree water; a full ten degrees off from where it was.

I’m starting to think about what we need to take with us to the cabin and gathering stuff up and putting it in the spare bedroom. Trying to decide what our meal will be. We’re looking forward to it! If you want to read the cabin blog entries from past years, I’ve now created a category called “Cabin” over on the right hand side of the blog. Clicking on that link will bring them all up. Enjoy!

Whew. Summer is packing a punch this year. Even though I’ve been enjoying this weather from a pool perspective, it’s getting a bit old. Lots of sun and no rain. It’s starting to feel like Colorado around here, and that is not necessarily a good thing since no one here can water their lawns because most of us are on wells in the country. Even people in larger towns do not have the in-ground sprinkler systems that are absolutely necessary there. Our lawn is crisping up and there isn’t much we can do about it. We water our new landscaping in the front only as needed. Where is the rain? I am tired of seeing the relentless sun every day!

The season is starting its decline though. The sun’s angle is lower week by week. Areas of the pool that used to stay in the sun until late afternoon are now shaded. Soon that will lead to a cooler pool temperature than the steady 82 degrees that it’s been maintaining for a over a month now.

At least one person is benefitting from all these brown, crispy lawns. A man who owns a company spraying lawns green with dye is making lots of money. Can you imagine? What does that say about us culturally? We’re so into our green perfect lawns that we would dye them green and potentially harm the environment? He states that his dye is safe for children and pets but I have to wonder. Unless he’s using food coloring! Will the grass need its roots touched up as well?

The other morning I was in the computer room when I heard Bella bark. I thought she wanted to go out, but when I got to the sun room she was looking up at the screen door. Clinging to the inside of the screen was a large green bug. mom, there’s an intruder in the house and i don’t know what it is! Me either, Bella. Never seen one like this before. When I tried to capture it to take it outside it emitted a noise not unlike a cicada, only it wasn’t a cicada. This got everyone’s attention, cats and dog alike. what is that thing?  I took this video so I could try and identify it later on.

Katydid from Rick & Lynne Robinson on Vimeo.

Bella was very intrigued by it. I think it was injured to begin with because it could not fly away.

The next morning there was another one clinging to the outside basement wall of the house. I took photos and headed off to Google it. I typed in “green bug that looks like a grasshopper but is not” and came up with a solution. Meet Mr./Mrs. Katydid.

We’ve long thought the the cicadas were getting back up from something else like crickets, and here is the proof. But why haven’t we ever seen one before?

The turkeys come around every day and I usually give in and feed them some sunflower seeds and cracked corn. I have one that comes all by itself early in the morning and it just stands there looking at the house, willing the front door to open and for me to come and throw a few handfuls of food out. The other day around midday the big turkey family came (three hens and assorted aged babies) and I went out to feed them. The dumb clucks left instead of hanging around to eat the food and I figured the squirrels, birds and chipmunks would make short order of it. When I looked out an hour later this is what I saw instead.

oops. I’ve done this countless times before without bear visits. Trust me, this was not intentional! Not the same little cub as in the previous post; this one is probably a yearling.

what do you mean this isn’t my food bowl?

who is that crazy lady hanging out the window up there talking to me?

i think i heard something

Right after I took this photo the cub ran off into the shelter of the woods and halfway up a tree. I don’t know what it heard that spooked it, but it was afraid of something. A few minutes later it decided it was safe and back it came.

I’ve been keeping my eye on these grapes growing by the side of our street. Concord grapes. They are tasty and sweet but have a lot of pits! If we don’t get some rain they will just turn into raisins on the vine! I hope not as I plan to snatch them the minute they get ripe.

We had a full weekend with a picnic to Bear Mountain, dog walks, farmer’s market and pool time. On Saturday night we did something we’ve talked about doing for a long time. We “camped out” in the cabana for a while. After our nighttime swim we brought out the air mattress and pillows and just lay there listening to the cicadas (and katydids!). We both fell asleep and sometime later I felt Rick shaking me awake. Time to go back inside before the dogs miss us.

(taken this way on purpose! I happen to like warped nighttime photos.)

Sorry for the rambling post about a mishmash of things. I just sat down and started typing and this is what came out!

I have more to share this week with photos of our drive to Harriman State Park and Bear Mountain on Saturday and the surprise we got on Sunday morning while washing Mia, so stay tuned!

Not exactly “turkey in the straw” but if we don’t get more rain it might just be more like straw than grass.

She’s baaaaack! Momma turkey has decided she likes it here. Yesterday afternoon she brought the kids to the park—also known as my back yard. They were too cute to pass up snapping a few shots of them. They roamed all over the grass, pecking at worms and bugs that our afternoon rain shower had coaxed out of the ground.

Get all your turklettes in a row momma!

They seemed to enjoy their little outing and so did I. The dogs weren’t too happy about the whole thing because it was right at the time of day that I feed them and let them out in the yard. Their dinnertime got delayed by 45 minutes or so until the coast was clear and I was certain that baby turkeys weren’t going to be part of the dinner menu.

dad… i know you’re still in China tonight and all and you’ll be home tomorrow night this time, but I just wanted to let you know what’s going on at home ...

Notations from mom: outside temp today: 82 F; pool temp upon opening 59 F

I am sure you are scratching your heads about my title. Right now Rick is in Japan. His night is my day and vice versa. When he calls me upon rising on his morning, my night is just beginning.  A bit strange. Right now he is already starting my tomorrow. He is eating sashimi and I am eating leftovers.

I should know by now that buying frozen food I am not going to like it. Yet again, while in Trader Joe’s yesterday I bought a frozen chile relleno thinking it sounded good. For 45 minutes my would-be dinner cooked in the oven. Cutting into the chewy, too-old poblano chile, I knew before it reached my mouth that I was not going to like it. Ugh. In the trash it went. I ended up warming up pasta and homemade sauce that I made last night. I hate eating on my own! Maybe it has to do with being super picky about what I eat. But I refuse to eat things that don’t taste good. It’s just not worth it!

The dogs and I went for a walk after dinner tonight. Today was quite warm here, around 80F and sunny. The past few days have been rainy and the dogs have not been able to even get out and do their normal thing. Yesterday while it was raining heavily Bella went to the door and woofed. I opened the door, she peered out and sniffed, then turned to look at me like WTF? Sorry, kiddo. I can’t change the weather. Here are Alex and Hailey chilling out from their walk. I love Alex’s “frog-dog” position.

Anyway, sitting out on the deck while the dogs cooled down from their walk was very pleasant. The cool but humid air and the peepers singing their froggy song from the woods washed over me like a calming balm. So soothing. Puffy clouds scudded by in the sky vying for space with the moon that looks like a pie sliced in half.

My eyes scanned the yard for fireflies, but as yet, none in sight. Since everything else this year is two weeks ahead of schedule I was hoping that they would show up early. Too soon, I guess.

All too soon it was dark and time to come in. Here is the moon just before I came in.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine my husband nearly half a world away in the daylight.

P.S. More to come on our trip but I am thinking everyone is getting bored by now of more photos ...