Bear claw marks at Birch Ridge

Bear claw marks at Birch Ridge

Since my last post, it has been a strange couple of weeks.

The town of Killington has been in a Camelot weather pattern. Generally we have had nice sunny days accompanied by plenty of rain many nights. As a result, the greenery of the "Green Mountains" is on full display. Gardens around the inn are very happy at the combination of abundant sunshine and plenty of water.

While the gardens are doing well, we have also had some weirdness at the inn. It started a few weeks ago with a very aggressive black bear tearing at the doors to the shed that surrounds our dumpster. Our trash service, Casella, had replaced most of the dumpsters in town at the start of last winter to make the pick up process more automated. Unfortunately, the new dumpsters were a tempting buffet table for a family of black bears patrolling the Killington Road in the early evening hours. Every open restaurant in Killington has at least one bear story from the last few weeks. At it now stands, the problem seems to be solved at the inn. Casella has installed a "Bear Bar" on the dumpster and reinforced the covers with some serious steel cross members to prevent bears from gaining access. We have not been visited by the bear in the last week, since the newly modified dumpster has arrived.

The "Camelot" weather has also created its own problems.

Early last week, a thunderstorm rumbled through Killington. At about 9:15 at night last Tuesday, the well at the inn was struck by lightning. The pump in our well is about 600 feet underground, fed by a 4 conductor 4 gauge cable. The lightning fused the cable together, shorting out the well. In the process, it also did something to the connection between the well and the well casing, resulting in the 2 being "welded" together. 2 days of plumbers, an excavator with a back hoe, 600 feet of new cable, a new 5 horsepower motor and pump, some sanitizing chemicals, and a box of water filters later, we had water back at the inn by dinner time on Thursday.

Plumbers getting ready to drop a new pump 600 feet down the inn's well. Click to enlarge..

All the while this was happening, we had a group of golfers staying at the inn associated with the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA). They were playing at a tournament at Green Mountain National Golf Course. We supplied all of our guests plenty of bottled water for personal use, and got minimal water service back at the inn late Wednesday afternoon to allow showers and toilets to function. It could have been a lot worse, but we got great response time from our contractors to take care of the excavation and plumbing work quickly.

From a golf standpoint, both Mary and I won our preliminary matches in Green Mountain National's Presidents Cup tournament. Mary made it to the finals of the women's division, where she lost on the 18th hole to our friend Nina. I made it through 2 preliminary matches, before loosing in the semi-finals on the 17th hole to a new pass holder at Green Mountain, Vito. With everything happening at the inn, the few rounds of golf we had a chance to play were great diversions.

The rest of August looks like it will be relatively busy at the inn. Vacationers seem to be responding to the call of the mountains this summer. And that's a good thing for Killington.

Where ever you may find yourself, remember to keep it in the fairway and don't forget the sunscreen.