Dinner and a show (The Wind in the Willows)

“Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wild World," said the Rat. "And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or to me. I've never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all.”

Helen sent me the link below to a pizza eating groundhog today, which I absolutely loved.

https://twitter.com/abc7/status/1250492458686771200?s=11

The video reminded me of the menagerie of small mammals (and some that are not so small)  that creep, crawl and hop thru the grass in front of the porch of our cabin. Unlike some, I'm looking at you Justin, we are going to follow the Federal and Provincial guidelines about unnecessary travel. Which means we will miss spring at the cabin, and I suspect the little critters will miss the bird feeders. However since everyone in our circle has been spared the virus, knock on wood, we have nothing to complain about. 

Okay the moose and bear were photographed from the cabin 

bur across the slough. Which is just as well. 

“He saw clearly how plain and simple - how narrow, even - it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.”

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

Black Bears

There’s a bear in the Truro woods.

People have seen it - three or four, 

or two, or one.

from The Truro Woods

  By Mary Oliver

I had great hopes that, based on the trauma that two young bears  I 

wrote about in my last post suffered, they would after sober second 

thought and quiet reflection decide on a change in venue and possibly

enrol in the Peace Corps, enlist or maybe join a bear friendly religious

order, something with fryers perhaps? But in the manner of teenagers 

everywhere and most adults I have meet, all they learned from their

past mistake was "lets try it again and see if it works out differently". 

The very next evening they appeared in the same spot, however they

did get a different result, the resident bear did not appear and after

swimming across the slough they disappeared in a different direction

and as far as we know did not approach the cabin. While we were

thrilled to see them hopefully they are adventuring in a different area

and we can resume the even tenor of our days.

"The bear went over the river, 

To see what he could see.

And all that he could see, 

Was the other side of the river,

The other side of the river, 

Was all that he could see."

uncredited Children's Song

Black Bears

"Whenever I walk in a London street,
I'm ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street,
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, "Bears,
Just look how I'm walking in all of the squares!"
And the little bears growl to each other, "He's mine,
As soon as he's silly and steps on a line.""

from Line and Squares

by A.A. Milne

We were sitting in the screened in porch having supper with my 

mother-in-law last evening when we noticed two young bears on 

 the spit of land that juts out into the slough about 400 yards 

from our cabin. This is the same spit of land where

earlier in June we saw what appears to be our resident 

bear poking around. We have had a single bear here for some years

 ( whether it is the same one I cannot tell you)

who mainly avoids close proximity to the cabin, I suspect the noisy dogs 

help. My brother-in-law, who has had a lot of experience with bears has

 said this is the best kind, it leaves you alone but it's presence will

 discourage other bears from moving in. 

It is probably male as we never see cubs,

 another complication we would like to avoid. 

One of my brother-in-law's experiences with bears

 occurred when a mother with cubs chased him into this 

very slough in this same spot. 

My wife asked him when he decided to run, and he answered decide?

But I digress, the two young bears wandered about eating for about 

an hour. Four beavers that had been on the opposite shore

disappeared. One approached closer to the bears to keep them in 

sight and then slapped it's tail as they moved about.

 Finally the young bears started running, a larger bear 

( the resident as promised? ) 

came out of the bush after them. We though we had seen the last of 

them  but about 10:30 last night we were in bed when Nina started 

barking. She often alerts us to beavers eating the nearby  trees. 

My wife looked out the window and shrieked in surprise 

( similar to her mouse on the cupboard shriek) 

when she saw one the young bears behind the cabin

  The shriek and the barking that followed seem to have frightened 

it off and we have added an airhorn to the bear spray 

we already had on hand. 

Sorry about the picture quality this is thru a screen and 

I am some distance away ( which I like ). 

"No, Yogi! We promised the Ranger we would stay away. 

 You're right. I'm losing control, Boo-Boo. I don't know who's steering 

the ship! "

Yogi and Boo-Boo

"Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate from the bridge it covers."

from Monet Refuses the Operation

by Lisel Mueller

   We arrived at the cabin a couple of days ago. 
These photos were taken by the trail camera attached
to the post by the porch steps. The bear appears for
several days after we left then nothing.

“ ...If there is to be a poet in these modern times,

he must go out for himself and must gain much

wisdom. He must look deeply into the world,

and far into time, even though he sees both the

world and time from some little microcosm like

Sheep Rock Spring.”

                                                from Sheep Rock

                                                        by  George R. Stewart,

"When he tried his eyes on the lake ospreys

would fall like valkyries

choosing the cut-throat

He took then to waiting

till the night smoke rose from the boil of the sunset

But the moon carved unknown totems

out of the lakeshore

owls in the beardusky woods derided him

moosehorned cedars circled his swamps and tossed

their antlers up to the stars

then he knew though the mountain slept the winds

were shaping its peak to an arrowhead

poised

And now he could only

bar himself in and wait

for the great flint to come singing into his heart" 

                                           

                                                                    from Bushed

                                                                          by Earle Birney

                                     From the top, Nina, Shaun and Whateley in their run.

  

By day three we noted that what we believe was a bear had stuck

it's head through the chain link. Luckily we were all in bed. 

 We did reinforce the run, which was constructed with just this type 

of event in mind and a trail camera showed no sign that bear returned to

that spot.

"The hounds laid dew-laps on the ground,

With needles of pine sweet, soft and rusty--

Dream'd of the dead stag stout and lusty;

A bat by the red flames wove its round.

The darkness built its wigwam walls

Close round the camp, and at its curtain

Press'd shapes, thin woven and uncertain,

As white locks of tall waterfalls."

                       from Said the Canoe ( an old favorite ) 

                      by Isabella Valancy Crawford

Earlier I posted photos of my wife's family farm

in Saskatchewan and also photos of the cabin we

have been building on 80 acres we purchased to use

during our retirement. One thing we had planned to do

was set up trail cameras to observe the wildlife.

Brian my wife's younger brother, (who with her older

brother Ralph did most of the work on the cabin often

under unpleasant conditions, building a tin roof during a heat

wave  while sick comes to mind, Thanks Guys), set up some trail

cameras this year and was kind enough to share the fruits of his

labour. I am not sure which part of the farm the cameras were

stationed on but all the land on the farm including ours is

fairly similar, Aspen Parkland, a northern extension of the

Great Plains prairie ecosystem which forms a large part

of western Canada and the United States. I really recommend

Candace Savage's  Prairie: A Natural History for an

introduction to the topic.

My wife and I met while working in archaeology. One of

the most challenging but also one of the most rewarding

aspects of this was you spent a lot of the summer outside in tents

often in isolated rural areas. The exposure to nature, through

the weather, the plants and the animals reinforced our desire

to be able to spend time outside the city gardening, watching

the seasons, getting to know the birds, the insects and reptiles (me)

watching the stars ( Helen and me ) and generally enjoying the

wildlife. The farm is perfect for this because the types of wildlife

actually appear to be increasing the usual deer, beaver, coyotes,

porcupine,skunks and occasional elk  now share their habitat with

wolves and moose which had not been seen for years. It appears that

mountain lions have also moved into the area in the last few years.

While retirement is some years away we had been consulting with

a financial planner and she mentioned that many people had trouble

with boredom. We looked at her and said we did not think that will

be a problem. And I don't think it will, be but if it is we can always

take a few minutes and talk to the neighbours.

"But the moon carved unknown totems
out of the lakeshore
owls in the beardusky woods derided him
moosehorned cedars circled his swamps and tossed
their antlers up to the stars"

              Bushed

                             Earle Birney

                                          "How long did those

       three deer stand pondering, the dark, bowing to taste

the least brown grasses, the cold-burnt rosehips"

           

                                                                  The Deer

                                                                       David Baker

" Now do U understand what heaven is

it is the surround of the living"

                                             The Changing Light at Sandover

                                                          James Merrill

Thanks Again Brian