Just ramblin'

[Steve]

Today was the last day of summer. :(

Hot steamy days, girls in bikinis. Jumping into the lake at the end of the day. Sunburn. Guzzling water to the point where... well, I'll leave that up to your imagination. :eek: Eating tomatoes till the juice runs down my face... campfires at night...crickets....I love summer.

But tomorrow is the first day of fall. :) I love fall.

The foliage is starting to come on in the mountains. I'm still working up in the mountains and the morning temps are down below 40 degrees. Pretty chilly for shorts, but the 70 degree temps in the afternoon makes up for it. No more mosquitoes!!!

The bears are looking good. We've been watching a momma and two cubs all summer. They're all big and fat and getting fatter. The beechnut and acorn crop is good this year. The moose and deer both are looking good.

Hunting season will open soon. I won't be putting a shotgun against THIS shoulder for some time to come...ouch...maybe next year. I'll have to rely on others for my venison, or go without. I thought I'd be out of the mountains by now, but we have another month or so of work up here. It'll be the snow that kicks us out of here. I'm homesick... if you can't tell.

Well...I'm on the road tomorrow at 5am.

Peace and Love, brothers and sisters...



:)

[steveo]

The way the weathers been here lately it seemed summmer left about a month and a half ago. Last week was ok until Friday when the north winds kicked in and it seemed like snow was on its way. I've never seen blacker clouds swirling around like I did on the weekend. Since then it's been cold and rainy.

Eveything is changing here as well. Once where green dominated the landscape now it's a multi-coloured parade of yellows/orange and reds.
Been in the fields the past couple of weeks and I've noticed a real lack of wildlife compared to years past. One moose, one deer and a few coyotes is it. Seen scores of Canadian Geese flying southward so all you people down there in the southern states, the Geese are coming to poop all over your golf courses.

I live in a small tourist town and the tourists are gone now. Everything is quiet for another nine months. This summer we had over a million tourists pass through town which, by comparison to Disneyland is nothing but to this little place it's to many for the local infrastructure to support.

The hunters are here now as I see their camper trucks and quads around town. I haven't been hunting in years. I don't even remember where my shotgun is anymore. I think my bro-in-law has it. The fishermen are gone for now but they'll be back in a couple of months when the ice comes in and the fish will be better tasting then. Of course there's always one truck that goes through the ice every fall. Never fails.

Yeah I'll miss summer as well. I'll miss those bikini clad sweethearts showing off the latest skimpy summer fashions. I'll miss the bonfires at night, the all night partys, the fireworks, drinking beer out on the front balcony watching the girls frolic on the beach, the girls and the girls. Did I mention the girls? Oh, and the lady who stays next door for 3 weeks every summer. I'll miss her to.

So fall is here and winter is coming fast. I hate winter for the most part probably because this will be my 40th winter and I'm pretty tired of it. Tired of the cold and ice, the winds, car not starting, to cold to go outside, shoveling snow, windows won't open, furnace runs 24/7. Nothing good comes of winter except one thing.....

HOCKEY!!!

yes...it's hockey season again and things are looking good for the Habs (sorry you Maple Leaf fans....your going down to the upstart Habs this year). So the Habs win the Stanley Cup, Saskatchewan wins the Grey Cup, the Expos win the World Series, the Steelers win the Super Bowl and the Lakers keep winning for another few years. I also win the lottery and buy a Hockey team, buy a Bently and a Twin-reverb, a Les Paul that Jimmy Page onced owned, marry a super model that has a accent (prefer a scandanavian but will settle for Australian), buy the PC shop my ex-boss owns then punch him in the nose and fire everybody that wasn't nice to me. I'd buy a house in Denmark beside that nude beach I was at once and I'd buy a really big TV so I could play playstation3 hockey games all hours of the night. Yeah, that would be good.

hmmmm....maybe I should worry about paying the phone bill and try to find those missing socks.

[Steve]

Well steveo, I guess we're the only ones into the passing of the seasons. It sounds like you're a bit farther north than me.

I saw the bears again this mornin'. They couldn't care less about me and the others. They're eating like mad. Wow, have they grown. I don't know how they digest acorns but they're vacuming them off the ground and then climbing the trees to get more!

I was standing on the side of the mountain this mornin', in the rain. Nobody wanted to work. I was cold and wet. I heard them long before I could see 'em. Honkin' up a storm. Maybe a hundred geese, headed south. Made me want to go home.

So I did. :)

No work on Monday is a good thing....;)

[mjc]

Hmm....

Yeah, I guess it is fall....has been for a week now, just doesn't seem like it.

I've got geese that don't go anywhere year round, except between the river and the lake. Got deer all over my yard...enough that if I could I wouldn't have to buy any meat at all (but since I actually live in town I can't). So the geese on the move don't cue the season change. We are just starting to see the leaves change.

I guess what finally triggered it for me is the fact that the days are definitely shorter...and the annual fall bloom of politcal signs has started.

[steveo]

The passing of the seasons are quite pronounced and drawn out here so it's impossible not to notice and to some degree be affected by them. Although lately we seem to be skipping seasons. We had no spring this year in the true sense of the word. We went from winter with snow on the ground in the first week of June and then a week later it was summer. We had no rain for most of the summer but now in September we're getting the summer rains which is coming at worst possible time.

hmmm...I don't know about being further north. Frankly, I've never seen a bear here but 60 miles west of here (base of the Rocky mountians) there are plenty but then your either close or inside the national park boundry where hunting isn't allowed. Most of the Bear/Elk hunters head north of here. Either way it sounds pretty nice where your at.

Well I spoke to fast before. The other day at sunset I finished up a hay field and when I swung the tractor around I saw several deer coming through the field. They were good size to. I tried chasing them but at 8mph they just sorta stood there and wondered what I was doing.