Bears all around us

I had this post all ready to publish yesterday early afternoon. Then, with no explanation, our internet went kaput. It's one of the tradeoffs of living in the mountains - the internet is not reliable. In any case, this post is a day late... but I hope that you enjoy it!

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I'm settling into the late summer routine, enjoying my time with the Labraduo on the trails and reveling in the obvious presence of bears all around us. My remote wildlife camera on an animal trail in a berry patch yielded a black bear walking fast through the patch and toward our house.

The sow isn't huge but is definitely an adult. She probably has a fertilized egg that has divided 4 times floating in her uterus. If she's fat and healthy enough when she enters hibernation, the embryo will implant in her uterus wall and she'll become pregnant. Otherwise, she won't have cubs. I hope she does - I'd love to have tiny cubs around again next summer! Even better would be if she had her cubs in the same den as she used last winter!
For perspective on the bear's size, here is K walking in almost the same spot in a photo taken by the same wildlife camera. K looks worried, probably due to the bear scent from the night before.
As they walked through this spot, Buffalo Berry bushes surrounded the bear and K. The bear didn't slow despite the bright red berries weighing down the bushes. I think that this bear will be back for the Buffalo Berries.
Some raspberries have ripened nearby as well. I wonder if bears like those better than buffalo berries.
Although it's tough to see much detail in the bear photos, there's a good chance that this bear was the sow from the den that I monitored last winter. A sow with cubs frequented this berry patch late last summer, and thus, it makes sense that she would return to this field of delectable foods. I wonder what would happen if she ran into one of her yearlings (who starred in the bear den videos) here? Would she share the berry crop or drive the youngster off? I do know that a mother bear often gives up part of her territory to her daughters. Daughters usually inhabit their birth area for their lifetimes. However, my understanding is that the mother bear will not visit the parts of the territory that she's ceded to a daughter. Perhaps that means that this sow is keeping the berry patch as her own.

After she walked out of the berry patch, the bear continued toward our house. Her path was obvious from ripped apart stumps. This stump was about an 1/8 of a mile from our house and was ripped apart on the same night as the photos were taken by my remote wildlife camera.
Bears rip apart stumps to get to the juvenile form of ants called pupae, baby ants in white soft cases. Adult ants protect the next generation (i.e., pupae) by carefully hiding and protecting them. By the time I spotted this stump, it was 8 hours after the sow had torn it apart so the worker ants had already rescued and stowed the surviving pupae.
At about the time of that night when the bear was near our house, our dogs went ballistic. However, the bear never entered our clearing and so my home wildlife cameras didn't get a photo. I think that the sow knows that there's no food available here, and she probably prefers wild food. She came within 100 yards of our house to dig up another old stump and then headed away.
The next morning, K and I headed onto the deck for breakfast, and K charged toward the railing snarling. She doesn't like it when bears come close to our house, to say the least!
K and her brother have been breaking into frenzied barking several times a night for the past 4-5 nights - and all signs indicate that bears have been nearby each night. We humans are getting tired from lack of sleep! Of course, the dogs just sleep even more during the day to make up for their sleep deficit.

Through all of this, K and I have been enjoying our daily mountain bike rides together, although K is on edge, becoming electrified when we pass a spot where a bear recently stood. To avoid having K harass any bears, I've been insisting that she always stay right by my side. Here, I'd stopped for a moment, and K poked her nose up under my handlebars. What a cutie!
And, K stood tall in front of our mountains.
Today, I took time to treasure both dogs, as it is a tough anniversary that I wrote about last year.

Coming up tomorrow, at another wildlife camera site, I captured footage of a mountain lion, a doe with a spotted fawn, and a single buck, one of the pair shown in the last wildlife video. Just so you don't worry, I didn't capture any footage of the lion near the deer although one of the bucks who usually appears with a partner was solo...

This I believe - a remembrance

Today I awakened with a heavy heart, remembering that 18 years ago, we lost one of our first dogs to violence. His name was Rover, and he was a spirited, strong, and loving two year old Labrador.We adopted him with his almost identical littermate, Astro. Once, I switched their collars - Rover always wore red and Astro always wore blue. My husband didn't notice right away and was flummoxed when neither dog responded to his name! One surefire way to tell them apart was to close your eyes and stroke their ears. Rover's ears were the silkiest soft ears that I've ever touched.We met these dogs, who lived in a very humane research lab, when they were puppies. Soon, we were sneaking them out of the lab for adventures and even sneaking them home to spend the night with us - without asking our landlords. One Saturday morning, we woke up to find the landlords doing yardwork outside our door. It appeared that they planned to work all day, and we had two 70 lb illicit Labs in the house who needed potty breaks. My husband pulled out two HUGE duffel bags. First, he used treats to get Astro into one, and he confidently walked to the car with the bag. Rover was next. Neither of them wriggled or made a peep. We drove away giggling wildly and let the dogs out for hugs and pats. What an escapade!

That night, we asked the landlords if we could have the dogs at our house, and they happily gave us permission. I don't know why we didn't just ask to start with!

Soon thereafter, the non-invasive experiments on the dog duo ended, and we adopted them. They launched us into our love affair with dogs.

Back then, we lived in New England, and we had adventures with the dogs in the woods and the White Mountains almost every weekend. Rover loved swimming in cold lakes.Here, the two dogs had just swum, undoubtedly with Astro barking in frustration because Rover was a speedier runner and swimmer. Rover is lying down.
Today, K and I mountain biked as usual. I kept K close by, like I always do, but with even more fervor. We found a silent and beautiful spot in the pine forest where a grove of tiny gems bloomed. We sat together, and I remembered Rover. His brother Astro lived to be almost 16 years old. I'm still sad that Rover and the rest of us lost so many years together. I'm also sad that the violence and death of that day 18 years ago changed me forever.About a year ago, I wrote a "This I Believe" in the style of the NPR essays. Mine focused on Rover and his legacy.


This I Believe

I believe in seizing the moment to do things that I love. I’ve developed this belief through both bad and good experiences. The most life-changing experience happened in my early 20s. My husband and I had the good fortune of having a pair of Labrador littermates unexpectedly land in our life. Prior to their unexpected arrival, we would not have chosen to make a commitment to two young dogs because we wanted to keep our freedom. However, it was one of the best things that ever happened to us. We learned daily about the exuberance of young dogs and the loyal love that they naturally give their humans. We learned how they joyfully embrace each day and find happiness in the smallest things like carrying a stick while sprinting around in circles.

One Saturday morning about a year after we adopted our Labs, we overslept, and our pups awoke us by marching around the bedroom carrying our hiking shoes to subtly tell us what they wanted to do that day. On the way to the trailhead for our hike, my husband and I talked about how old we would be when our dogs became elderly. We happily counted the many years and fun experiences that we thought that we would share with them.

Our youthful naiveté was shattered during that hike when a crazy drunk man murdered one of our dogs and then threatened me with his gun. Although I’ve endured many losses since that time, that particular event profoundly changed my view of life. First, I learned that I have more courage than I ever dreamed – when my dog lay dying and the crazy man waved his gun at me and told me to leave my dog’s side, I refused to abandon my dog to die alone. I still draw strength from knowing that I have that kind of courage. Then, over the months and years following that event, I struggled with my loss of trust in humankind. Sadly, I never totally regained that trust.

Finally, after years of grieving and learning about the fragility of my own health, I distilled the lesson that I should seize each day as if it were my last with my human and canine family. Life is fleeting, precious, and unpredictable. Indeed, exuberantly seizing every day is exactly what my dogs naturally do - and in that aspect of life, they are my best teachers.