Summer ends here when Mr. TroutBend loads up his Honda and drives back to Las Vegas, and that was this morning at 12:30 am. In some ways it's easier to make the drive at night because there's less traffic and cooler inside and out. There are enough 24 hour gas stations along the way to make it possible.

What comes next for me, season-wise is the purgatory between summer weather and freezing weather. This means the continuation of the chores Mr. TBend performed: lawn watering, cleaning the guest cabin's barbecue grill between guests, and dealing with the trash pickup. Guests generate huge volumes of trash.

The bear-proof trash bin has to be lugged up the steep driveway to the highway before 7 am on Wednesday. It's too heavy with trash in it, so I pull it up there empty, then add the trash bags separately. I usually take a chance the bears will come in the night and take it up there the night before, chain it to the highway guardrail so the bears can't throw it in the river trying to get it open.

From now up until November we are in high alert for bears getting into our houses because they need 25,000 - 35,000 calories a day to get ready for winter. Their natural diet is grass, fruit, insects, roots and bulbs of plants along with carrion and, when hungry enough, they will hunt small animals. Seems like it would be a full-time job to eat enough of that roughage to reach 35,000 calories a day. No wonder they like to break into our houses.