Brookside Fun

Grout Bay view from Brookside

So, although I missed the inaugural dinner celebrating a remodel completion here on Brookside a couple of weeks ago, I lucked out and was thrilled to spend a fun evening over with Holly, Tim and Valle in their beautifully remodeled log cabin.

We chatted late into the night and then I was graciously escorted home. We ambled under the sparkling skies of a crisp winter night while enjoying the chorus of a coyote across town.

Ron & Sandy's Cabin

News around town is a bit scarce, and slow arriving, but I finally heard that Ron finally proposed to Sandy on Halloween. The two will tie the knot sometime in the future. They own the cute little cabin just a couple of houses down the road from the Buddhist Meditation Temple.

Over at my little homestead, I managed to stack one of the two cords of wood after moving the two cords off the deck. I felt immensely satisfied that it only began to snow once I completed the job and had finished covering the larger stack.

I managed to take a day off to recover but soon found myself over on the other side of the lake where I was asked if I had any more animal adventures since my fish story and bat in the bathroom adventure.

At first I said “no” but then after I thought about it, I remembered that while I was hauling and stacking wood on my deck near the stairway, a large coyote came down my stairs on his way down to Grout Bay.

He didn’t notice me, which I thought was odd since I was in my bright red flannel jacket, but I took the opportunity to pause in my work to watch him traverse the pathway down onto the hillside.

He obviously felt my gaze, startled and glanced furtively my way as he picked up his pace. Pausing for a moment at the highway, he scanned the area below before trotting across North Shore and into the brush.

This is one of my favorite aspects of living here since it is possible to watch wildlife of all sorts. This year there have been a variety of sightings of large and small, predator and prey.

Each snow storm leaves behind a thick, white carpet that helps reveal just who has been in my neighborhood and so my favorite past time it to locate and identify the animal tracks scattered across the property. Early morning is best since the sun melts and distorts the tracks as it begins to warm.

The local wildlife tends to be pretty savvy and have discovered that my shoveled stairway is a great thoroughfare. This means that I often have some unusual visitors on my deck at my doorway or beneath my window. Just after this last storm I found raccoon tracks all the way to my front door.

raccoon tracks

In the past, the coons regularly came to party on my deck. Every night they would arrive between 2am and 3pm to jump and play on my rocking chairs, or engage in a living game of tag across my decks.

Alas, the nearby construction drove them away for a while but they seem to be finally coming back and I never tire of watching them from the window.

A large number of sightings of all types have been reported. Squirrels are finally beginning to resurface, bears are still meandering into town and up the street a large bobcat has been making himself at home and taking a sunbath on a second story porch.

These sightings are not unusual, but for those who are not full-time residents, it creates some concern.

Just a reminder, we live adjacent to the forest and lake, since the animals have always been here, it is us humans that are encroaching on the wildlife and interfering with their habitat and shrinking down their passage corridors.

GG says, watch them and enjoy–and have a great Thanksgiving!



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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 and is filed under Fawnskin Folk, Mountain Lake Resort, Mountain Wildlife.

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