Busted!

I see you, you little thief!

After a couple of weekends to ourselves, Rob and Deb came by this past Saturday, overnight. Since late April, Christine and I have been on skeeter-watch so that we could decide on a good weekend for them to visit.  We did pretty well; there were very few of those flying vampires throughout the day but once the sun went down, it was like some skeeter-leader called a meeting and they all showed up.  So we gave up on the awesome fire I'd started and headed upstairs.

While chatting in the living room, we heard a clatter outside.  From the Captain's Chair, I was only able to see a shadow climbing down one of the trees.  We grabbed one of the nearby flashlights and spotlighted the above critter.

My camera wouldn't have really worked in complete darkness, so I didn't even make the attempt (and as if often the case, I didn't have it handy, and had no real idea where it was) to get a picture at that point.  But our masked friend returned the following morning (at least I assume it was the same one) to clatter around some more.

It's 5AM.  Shouldn't we BOTH be sleeping? 

He (again, an assumption, and an arguably sexist one) tips the bird-feeder forward than scrambles down to enjoy the fruit (seed) of his labour.

Rather handsome lad, eh?

And a good reminder that if you feel like stepping out after dark, go right ahead, but maybe flood the deck with the bright halogen light we have up there (its switch is at the right of the entrance into the sun room) to make sure that you're not about to startle a raccoon, lynx, moose or camel, whatever. You never know.

Shortly following Rob and Deb's Sunday departure, we prepared to enjoy the remaining morning sun (it was about to cloud over pretty convincingly) and got another unusual surprise.  Check out the water here.

See that yellowish trail?  It appears to be pollen, and remembering several nasty battles with allergies, I was content to remain on the upper deck. Swimming in it seemed like a bad idea.

I believe something similar took place last year as well, briefly, and on a smaller scale.  Christine and I are heading out this weekend again and spending an extra day there to celebrate our 17th anniversary (17th?? What??).  I guess we'll see what things look like when we get there.

We have plans for the early part of our visit anyway.  On Friday, we're going to work on the garden where Scooter (I just decided that's my raccoon's name, for no reason I can pinpoint) was messing around, as well as the area where the row boat is turned over. It'll be good to see that little (big) project move forward a little.  We might be in line for a third straight good weather weekend and in light of how rare that is, you can imagine that we're looking forward to it a great deal.