Imagine...

We had big storms today but they were accompanied by brief and intense rain. Consequently, the lightning strikes near us didn't turn into fires. Thankfully, so far, it's been a low stress day for us with no mad dashes to flee any fires. However, numerous small fires are burning throughout our county from lightning strikes. And, the thunder is rumbling out there again. Thanks for all of your kind emails and comments - they are helping my spirits so much.

K continues to amaze us. In the middle of last week, her lungs were slowing her down a lot, and her hind legs seemed weak and clumsy. I feared the worst. Fortunately, the hind end weakness lasted only one day and has not recurred. Moreover, her lungs aren't getting perceptibly worse. We are SO happy that we didn't cancel our weekend camping trip (we almost did because we thought that K was too sick for it). It seemed like visiting our favorite place breathed new energy into K.

Over K's lifetime, we've visited our weekend campsite many times, and she has joined me for countless long and fun mountain bike rides high above treeline near the campsite. Alas, this time, mountain bike rides with K were out of the question but we reveled in our short hikes through the meadow.

As far as I'm concerned, K is now beating her most recent prognosis by a long shot. She's still hiking every day, and seems to be holding her own against this disease, despite many warnings that the disease was winning. I'm taking it one day at a time but we've had a string of good days that have left me smiling about K.

Imagine if K had listened to those prognoses and given up? Imagine all that we would have missed. I'm learning so much about life from K each and every day.

One of the things that I've learned is not to give up on things that K and I used to do together, even though I miss K while do them without her. In that spirit, I went on mountain bike rides while K hung out with the boys during our camping trip. The trails were divine, and I could feel K's spirit sitting on my shoulder as I rode.

K doesn't seem to mind at all when I depart on my bike without her. I think that she understands that mountain biking would be too hard for her now, and she simply accepts it. She revels in what she can do rather than moping about what she can't do. If only we humans could learn to take such an optimistic outlook!

On a different topic, the bears aren't giving up, despite what is looking like an extremely dismal food year. They're still showing some mating season behavior even though my calender says that mating season is over.

This large male was doing the dance of his life! Socks, our 2-year old female came through that night, and she sniffed this tree with interest. I wonder if this male will get together with Socks! Bears get together with multiple partners during mating season. Socks was with Milton, the biggest bear in our forest, earlier this summer.

After mating season, a sow's fertilized eggs hang out in suspended animation until the start of hibernation. The eggs implant in the uterus wall and start developing only if the mother is fat and strong enough to support cubs. If she's not fat and strong enough (e.g., after a drought summer), the fertilized egg never develops. I suspect that many sows will not have cubs this winter because food is going to be so scarce for the rest of this summer.

Indeed, look at this yearling bear who I captured with a trail camera for the first time the other day. He is painfully thin. It makes me so sad to see him barely eking out an existence.

I desperately hope that our bears can survive this incredibly tough drought.