Living in a Zoo

 Hello Everyone,

There are days when we feel as though we are living in a zoo.  Here's proof of that statement.  Mr. Joe and I just sat down at the dining room table when two cubs and their mom ran up a tree right by our deck.  I love the grumpy face on the bottom cub.

Mazey was outside on the deck and was nose to nose with mama bear with only the thin bars of the railing separating them.  I ran out and called Mazey and quickly got her into the cabin, but not before mama took a swipe at her and growled.  Mazey heard the urgency in my voice and ran back inside the cabin unscathed.  I was sure that I'd scared the bears away......but that was not to be the case.

Mama proceeded to curl up and take a nap in a bed that was "just right" in the drainage pipe.  

The branches of the tree were just perfect for the cubs to take their naps.  This is the only time I ventured outside to get a picture.  The rest of the pictures were taken inside the safety of the cabin.

We were expecting friends to drop by after lunch, and they enjoyed the show.  I'd texted them ahead of time and alerted them to what was going on.  I should have charged admission to the zoo!

The cubs ventured down from the tree after napping for over an hour and a half.  They went over to mama and started nursing.

This little one had very interesting markings on his chest.  It looked so cute when it stood up.

Mama checked us out one more time. Take a good look at her claws.....scarey. 

Then she gathered up her kids, and headed over to the neighbor's cabin.

She was very interested in their garage door.  Bears have been known to rip off garage doors to gain entry.

The surprising thing about this encounter was that we couldn't scare the bears away.  Normally if you make enough loud noise they leave.  We have to be on extra sharp alert when we are out in the yard from now on, more so now than ever before.  

Just another day in our mountain life.

Soon,

Lynn

No Sewing Here!

Hello Everyone,

Not one speck of quilting has been happening at Wilder's Last Resort, but there's been a whole lot of shoveling and snow blowing.  We have one snow blower, which I call the Joeblower.  Mr. Joe can manhandle it up and down the driveway.  I use a shovel and push the snow to the right side of the garage. I can no longer hurl a shovel full of snow over the berm.  I mainly go out and pretend to help Mr. Joe, and give him moral support, and make sure he doesn't keel over from over exertion.

I took this picture of the back of the cabin two days ago.  Without putting on snowshoes yesterday, I couldn't make it down out back to show you an additional 2 feet of snow.  It's been a heavy, wet snow causing a lot of damage, and an area-wide power outage.  The entire town has been in the dark for days, which also means no Internet, phone, or TV.

I don't think we will be out picnicking on our deck in the near future.  While clearing the driveway on Tuesday, we heard a loud crack.  We went up the road to investigate, and found a tree on our neighbors deck, and wires across the road. Since our phone was working at the time, we were able to call and report the problem.  It was a bad situation.  As of yesterday, the lines were still down.  

A few hearty full-timers ventured out of their cabins to check out the damages yesterday.  Our neighbor ended up with a tree on top of his car.

We keep the red SUV in the garage, but the poor Jeep is left out in the elements.  Everyday I was brushing it off, and digging it out just in case we needed to use it. I finally gave up yesterday.  This is how much snow fell overnight Wednesday.  The red car had been out for just a few minutes, and was covered.

We had to get out of the woods, and get to our house in the Bay Area for our vaccine appointment today, Friday.  We had a small bag packed by the front door, and waited for the snow plow to come by all day Thursday.  The plows are having a difficult time getting through because of the downed trees and lines.  Finally, around 2pm, we heard the plow and that was our key to get out of Dodge.....if we could make it to the main highway.  It was a white-knuckled half mile, but we made it thanks to Mr. Joe's driving skills and 4-wheel drive.  

On another note, my sister decided to come up to her cabin on Tuesday to experience a really BIG winter storm.  Mother Nature did not disappoint!  Gail's cabin is about a mile away from me.  Did we go see her.....no. Could we have driven over there.....probably not without getting stuck. It would have been a very difficult walk through the deep snow. 

Gail rents her cabin out, so she doesn't keep any food there.  All she had was what she brought up with her, which wasn't a great deal.  Last night I got through to her on the phone, and she said in a pinch she could break out her K-rations from her earthquake kit she carries in the car. Yum!

The storm is supposed to end today, so Gail won't have to boil her leather shoes for a tasty meal.  She should be able to get out on Saturday, and we will be back there to help her out.

So we will get our Fauci Ouchi's today, and head back to check on the cabin, and Gail tomorrow.  Power is supposed to be restored later on this afternoon.  What a week this has been!  We've had our entire Winter compressed into the last three days.

Soon,

Lynn

P.S. Gail just called while I was posting.  She said another 8-10" of snow fell in the night.  Time to break into those K-rations.