A quick trip to the Valley (day up, day there, day home) included a wonderful memorial for Jim Bowman (which culminated in a Masonic ceremony), a short visit with his family but a longer visit with granddaughter Hannah, some great time spent with Larry and Paula, and with Mike White who hosted me in the Cubage Cabin. He even poured the wine in the evening!

Larry was on a painting project in his new digs — and I helped a bit so that Paula would not be mad about my dragging him off for a test of yanking up privet with a chain. We also had taken a bit of time to run up the road to the Day cabin on the 4-wheeler to check out some scratchings made recently by a black bear.

The bear had scratched all around the Day cabin and also pawed a window pane at Nelson Cameron’s still-under-construction cabin which is isolated a bit up the logging road. Click here to see the photos on my Flickr page.

Over Labor Day Larry and I marked the good trees (hardwoods, pine, sassafras, cedar, crabapple) in the privet thicket behind where I put my travel trailer and on down that hillside under the logging road, down to the storage shed (which most of you likely have not even noticed). We are investigating ways to get the chinese privet out of there — it’s a weed. Some photos of that area are also on my Flickr page.

Mike and I ate Saturday night at Ron’s BBQ. I had the scrumptious prime rib and could only eat 1/2 of it. After texting a photo to Jennifer that I was bringing the remainder to her, I went off and left it in the fridge. Bon appetite’ Mike! If you haven’t found Ron’s yet, you’re missing something.

The river is down and the creek flow is low, but still there. The river was low back on Labor Day which is what compelled brother-in-law Bill and I to hit the trails with mountain bikes and hiking instead of trying to kayak. Some of that became interesting. There is, perhaps somewhat unfortunately, a photographic record of those events, along with a bit of narrative for your reading pleasure.

While the main occasion for being there — Jim’s passing — was a sad one, it struck me that it’s always a good time to be in Jones Valley.