Wow.
Last week was a doozie for many of us in Western Howard County, Maryland. And that may be an understatement.
At my house we started last Sunday with a visit from a rabid raccoon on our driveway. Tuesday, the tornado hit. (See my last post.) And now this Sunday, a black bear wandered through our yard!
(Yes. You read that right. A black bear. IN. MY. YARD….. in Maryland.) This is not a typical sighting for our area….and thus VERY exciting for this nature girl! 🙂
I just can’t make this stuff up.
Well, after all the drama and devastation, this week we’re finding plenty of silver linings…. or rather… They seem to be finding us. 🙂
Some of you who have been following along on the blog may recall a post entitled “Lemonade” that I published during “snowzilla” when I was stuck in Florida in January. Well, this past week I was given my second BIG opportunity during Mom’s Big Year to exercise my lemonade approach to a not-going-as-planned situation.
My post-tornado heavy heart is much lighter and happier this week as I see our wonderful community (and beyond) coming together like never before. At any given time, neighbors, some who haven’t seen each other in months or years, can be seen outside trading their raccoon/tornado/bear stories, shaking their heads in sympathy, hugging, and even sharing laugh or two.
I can’t help but smile.
As for our home, we’re getting things back in place. But it would have taken us years to do it ourselves. I have to give a shout out to Ben Wolff and his entire crew at Wolff Tree and Landscape (http://wolfftreeandlandscape.com/) for their professional approach and for the highly-technical work they did to make our home safe for our family again. They went above and beyond and were somehow able to return our entire yard to a new post-storm beauty. As part of the cleanup, they removed 4, 150-foot tall trees that were hanging high and leaning OVER the top of our house. Eeeeek! Amazing! Ben even so kindly granted my request to cut some beautiful pieces for me from the fallen trees, so I could set up some unique ‘tree cookie’ tables in our yard. I’ve always wanted to do that, so needless to say, I’m a very happy camper. Thank you, Ben!
Now, after 3 hours of sleep (you just knew that would happen in Mom’s Big Year, didn’t you? 😉 ) , I headed out on an early flight this morning to Boston en route to Bar Harbor to do some ‘guerrilla’ birding with dear friends, Erin and Chris, Thurs-Sat. Wish us luck!
Puffins are on the agenda and I’m just a TAD excited.
And you already know how I feel about combining dear friends and birds.. So this is gonna be GREAT!
When I return home, why don’t you join me in my backyard at my new ‘tree table’ for a nice, tall, cold glass of lemonade… 🙂
Cheers!
Mom's Big Year 
Nancy, your usual sunny outlook seems to have gotten you through those awful experiences in good shape. I’m so glad you and your family are all safe. And then a rabid raccoon and a bear! Raccoons are a threat, cute as they are, even if healthy, because they can chew their way into an attic and cause alot of damage. But a bear? That is SO not new in Howard County. Three or four decades ago, when we lived off Triadelphia near Glenelg, our neighbor called late one evening to report one in her back yard, “Yeah, sure, Terri,” my husband said, and then looked out the window to see … a black bear. We were told that the young males are pushed out of the family home and wander off to find a new one. Did you happen to notice the gender of yours? { – :
Since our move to Millers Grant May 31st we have seen or heard 32 bird species, many from our seats on our patio as we sit drinking our morning coffee. So was this a good move or what?
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[…] A tornado touched down in West-Central Howard County, MD on June 26, 2016. Wolff was busy for many weeks cleaning up from the damage the storm left behind. On one job, a bear ducked under our log truck and wandered around the customer’s yard! Check out the video (This was featured on Fox 5 DC News) Our customer even wrote about us in her blog, Mom’s Big Year. Check out the blog post […]
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