One never knows what might be encountered on returning to a cabin on the Allegheny River or in the surrounding wild area after an absence of a full season or longer.

One year, a limb had fallen from high in the linden tree that towers over the structure and punched a hole in its metal roof. A replacement panel had to be installed.

Last year, we found that an improperly drained pipe leading up to the shower head in the shower stall had burst and had to be replaced in a clever plumbing maneuver. Then there was the year that mice had chewed a large hole in a plastic bird food container, which resulted in the hulls of sunflower seeds being found everywhere.

This year, we found that our 17-foot aluminum canoe was lying upright and filled to the brim with water, having been forced north across about 12 feet of lawn from where we had left it, despite being chained at a midship thwart to a heavy cement block.

Gale force winds from the southwest had a clean sweep of Althom Eddy before hitting the partially overturned canoe. It had been overturned with the interior facing the wind. If it had been tipped over the other way, there might not have been a problem.

On the day when I partially bailed the canoe out, I had help in tipping the canoe over to complete the job from two plumbers.

They had come to the property to replace the basement water pump, which due to poor drainage had cracked in the past winter’s freezing cold, resulting in an expensive bill.

A rather inauspicious start to our fair weather stays along the scenic Allegheny.

But in our years of seasonal residence along the river, there have been numerous other rather dramatic events, virtually none of which could have been duplicated at our main residence in Youngstown.

I have cited most of these in the past, but here is a brief recapitulation:

I now almost feel as though I am living on “borrowed time” since the day I was almost hit by a large limb from our linden tree.

I had been pulling my kayak up from the river, and had reached a flat space below the tree and a few feet away from the cabin’s two-story exterior when the limb fell, striking along the entire length of the kayak and missing my head by inches.

The crash of the limb was loud enough that Ron, our neighbor, ran over and cried, “What happened?”

Given the size of the limb and the height from which it fell, I am quite sure that the limb could well have injured me seriously, or even dealt me a fatal blow.

Although the risks we as a populace face from the trees which share our environment are very slim, my experience and one in Youngstown prove that the danger is real.

It was just recently that a golfer riding in a golf cart was killed by a falling tree on Mill Creek Park Golf Course, even though his companion in the cart was spared. It was said that the tree that fell was alive, not dead.

On a much less serious note, I well recall the morning when the second tree we had on our property, a very large red oak, fell.

The sun had not been long up and I was dozing in our second-floor cabin bedroom that overlooks the river when I heard a sustained cracking noise followed by a loud smashing one. The centuries-old oak, which had angled out over the river from the river’s low bank, had crashed into the river.

A pileated woodpecker had been pecking at its base in search of grubs, and a later inspection of the oak’s base revealed much rotten wood. The weight of leaves in the tree’s canopy that were wet from the river’s morning mist had apparently proven too much for the weak base of the tree.

Clearing the remains of the tree from the river and the narrow shore below cost $500. It was from the same cabin bedroom a year or so later that late one evening after I had retired I heard strange noises coming from the linden tree just outside the bedroom’s window.

Drawing the curtain aside, I could see that a large black bear was perched on a limb of the tree, from which it had hauled up the bird feeder which had hung from the same limb.

The bear managed to open the cylindrical feeder, and had guzzled its contents.

The small group of onlookers which gathered at the base of the tree to view the bear didn’t seem to faze it, and it climbed down from its perch and went on its way some time after everyone went back inside.

I later found the empty seed cylinder below the tree.

The benefits (such as the bear’s visit) and the penalties of living close to nature were also evident when a swarm of yellowjackets invaded the cabin.

They had entered through an opening in the cabin’s cedar siding, and had migrated up to a spot close to the ceiling of a small storage room built onto the rear of the cabin, where they chewed a hole through the plaster wall.

I sealed off the room with the buzzing insects by closing a door leading to it from the rest of the house, and opened the room’s door to the outside, enabling the insects to fly back outside.

But at least one had managed to get into the main portion of the cabin where it stung me as I sat reading on a couch under a lamp.

I hope the sting was fatal to the nasty bug.

Robert Stanger has lived seasonally for over 40 years along the Allegheny River and has the stories to tell about it.