Journal: May 25th. Cleaning and bear sighting.

clothes in bags

Today, leaving earlier, and with no traffic,  I managed to get back to the house before noon. Willie the electrician is there. George too. I had told Carl there was no rush for the plumbing part (what was I thinking?). He'll bring it late in the day.

I get the shop-vac set up. I'm relatively adept at picking up decades of dust liberally laced with mouse and bat residue. And I have a fine collection of hundreds of chewed up hickory nuts (not in the machine, but piled neatly on the table in the new room).
The closets and dressers in the two downstairs bed-rooms are full of Arthur and Judy's clothes and shoes. I pack plastic bag after plastic bag. The shoes in the front hall closet after offering shelter and nests to mice, chipmunks and squirrels have been destroyed and are destined for the dump,  but many of the clothes are in decent if  musty condition, and can be given away.

Chatting with Willie, the electrician, we stepped outside. He pointed out a big black bear (really big) on the driveway, just a few hundred yards from where we stood. "In my day, says the old-timer (that would be me) bears were not roaming the fields of New Jersey." Now they are everywhere.

Plans for compost have to be chucked--at least for the moment. No food near the house.  Bears love all those yummy scraps.

Work has really begun. It is head-spinning.  A black bear in the morning and as the sun set behind me tonight, the rising full moon shone through the  portals of the Brooklyn Bridge.