Too Hot for Surprises and Computer Problems!

 I don't do well in hot weather! Each time I went outside yesterday it seemed hotter than I ever remember. I was in St. Johnsbury on Thursday and had lunch with middle son, Bob. He showed me where the bank on the street beyond his house had turned into a mud slide and ended up on Barker Avenue, below. We didn't venture out onto Barker - it was totally closed and the people there are dealing with tons of earth in and around their homes.

We went out to what used to be Don's Wayside in East St. Johnsbury to see what Route 2 looks like. Most of the road still had evidence of having been covered with water, and there were standing pools of water on the flats along the highway and around the Fairbanks building. Geese have taken up residence, apparently finding lots of good stuff along the banks of the river and enjoying their new swimming pools about where the parking lot at Fairbanks is. Papa Tirozzi's Restaurant and Bakery were busy cleaning up after being severely impacted - they are open for business again today.

The camp ground at the intersection of Routes 2 and 18 was demolished. I can't imagine how those folks could possibly come back from that. They are on the Moose River, and it must have been raging through their campground. I managed to get this photo of the house above the campground - the campground itself was a mud field.

There are three rivers that converge in St. Johnsbury. The Passumpsic flows from the north straight through town, parallel with Railroad Street, and the Moose River joins it from the east, following Route 2 and crossing at the corner of Concord Avenue and Harrison Avenue. Sleeper's River flows out of the hills of North Danville and merges with the Passumpsic a little south of town near Bay Street. Combined, there was a whole lot of water pouring off of the hills surrounding St. Johnsbury when eight inches of rain fell in a matter of three hours.

I had a surprise Tuesday afternoon. I was at my sink around 6:30 and noticed an animal sitting at the edge of my driveway. At first I thought it might be a fox - but when it sat down, I realized it was a cat - a big yellowish cat. My first thought was that it was a stray and would I take it in like I had our treasured Woody. But when he got up, I realized this was no house cat - this was a bobcat! It strolled along the pavement and towards the lower lawn and then came back up the lawn towards my apple trees and the porch, sat for a minute under one of the trees, and then loped down the lower lawn towards the road and Randall's driveway. All this time - probably at least 5 minutes, I was fumbling with my cell phone, wanting to take a picture. The screen said my phone was locked. I NEVER have locked my phone! I tapped everything I could find on the screen and finally it said to "press home." I had no idea where "home" was, but finally it came on - but I have no clue why. And of course the bobcat was long gone by the time I got it working.

I'm really not fond of all the new devices we have to deal with these days. I do appreciate my computer, but like the phone, it does crazy things sometimes and it seems that whenever I'm pressed for time or want to do something special, that's when it goes crazy and either won't come on or like yesterday, when I suddenly had no sound. That isn't a big deal - I can manage without all the beeps and bells pretty well, but I find I miss being notified when I do something I shouldn't. But worse, when I went online to see if I could find a solution, most instructions were on YouTube and here I am with no sound. I gave up on that and started this blog post and couldn't upload the photo. I gave up, finally because I had more important things to do yesterday.

This morning nothing had changed, but I dove in and followed all connections on my computer - disconnected and reconnected the speakers, and now they are working. But I still couldn't load the photo. So I let my computer restart while I got my breakfast ready. Success! The darned thing has had a couple of updates recently, and I expect that may have something to do with the loss of sound. Or it could be my speakers somehow wriggled their way into being disconnected. I'll never know. I guess I'll blame the weather.

Enjoy the weekend - it's a great time to be at Joe's Pond. Go to the Danville Fair, have fun, and be safe.