Black Bear

 Helen was raised on the farm the cabin is built on yet never saw a bear in the area. She left for university and it was not until we purchased land and built the cabin that she saw black bears. Other animals such as moose also moved into the area. There are elk as well, but we have still not seen them. The cabin occupied the territory of a bear, we refered to as the resident bear and we occassionally saw it a few hundred yards from the cabin, walking by the new screened in porch, once running down the lane after the dogs barked at it, a few days later swimming past the cabin in the slough to avoid the noisy dogs in their run. It never bothered us or the bird feeders and we leave no trash around. We also watched it chase young bears out of it's territory. But mostly we knew it was around by seeing scat on the lane. The last couple of years we have not seen it. Again this year we have not seen any sign of it, and the occasional young bears (the ears are bigger in proportion to the head) have wandered by unchallenged. Most days we take the dogs down the hill thru the trees and then across the hay field to the gate for their walk. I do carry bear spray and an air horn. A few days ago Ralph was haying. That evening he and Pam came for supper and he mentioned a bear had been after ants among the logs on either side of the gate. It always amazes me that such large animals live (in part) on tiny berries and insects

As always when I see the evidence of animals moving largely unseen either thru our cities or thru our lives even here in the country, I think of Stafford's poem.

"Cocked in that land tactile as leaves

wild things wait crouched in those valleys

west of your city outside your lives

in the ultimate wind, the whole land's wave. 

Come west and see; touch these leaves." 

from Midwest

by William Stafford