Saturday Sharing, With Coffee! #14

Good morning to everyone on this sunny, but cool, Saturday! It will get nicer today however, and I am looking forward to that and the snow finally beginning to melt. It was sort of melting yesterday a bit with a temperature of 34F (1C). It should hit a high of 46F (8C) today, which would be very nice indeed, and even warmer tomorrow.

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, Saturday I will be writing about things from my past, hopefully things I have not written about before. This story is from a time back when we were just beginning to build our cottage. We did have a couple small cabins to store things and for sleeping. Definitely better than a tent, even though they were not big.

Jasper the Red Squirrel giving us a nice smile yesterday.

One time I was out there by myself, it was a beautiful, clear early summer night. It was fairly warm and very quiet that night. There was a nearly full moon which really illuminated the forest around me. I decided to go out for a walk and check for owls. We had a road that made a circle loop around part of the property and I stayed on that while out. I stopped at different places and called for owls. Nothing. Finally, at the far end of the road, I got the attention of a Great Horned Owl, one of our largest owls.

He was still quite some distance away from me, but it was still nice to hear him answer anyway. I kept walking along. Suddenly I heard something walking through the trees, not far from me. Deer were not plentiful out there, but bears were, so I stopped and waited. Sure enough, a Black Bear came out from the trees, about 20 feet away from me and crossed the road and headed off in the trees on the other side.

Black Bear (cinnamon color variation) at the local garbage dump. This color was common around our cottage.

He did not pay any attention to me, thankfully. His mind was on getting to the local garbage dump for some food, so nothing else mattered to him right then. I waited for a bit. I had learned that sometimes these bears will travel together in small groups of 2 or 3. But I did not hear anything else, so I continued for my walk. At another place I stopped and called. This time I was answered by a Barred Owl. I had seen Barred owls here before so it was nice to know they were still around.

Soon two of them were calling and coming closer. I was so wrapped up in calling the owls that I was not paying attention to noises around me. Then I heard a crunching sound close by. I stayed quiet, but there was nothing more. I decided it might be best to head back to my cabin, so that is what I did. As I got close enough to see the cabin, I stopped.

I just could not resist showing another Boreal Chickadee on my hand.

There was a bear in front of the cabin, the part where the door was located. Naturally. The worst part was that the bear was not walking around, he was lying down! Hmm, this was not good. There was a few mosquitoes around, but not as many as usual. However, right here there seemed to be a lot of them suddenly. I swatted without thinking and it made a fairly loud noise. The bear grunted and stood up.

He stayed still, sniffing the air. Then he walked around behind the cabin. So I ran quickly to the door and inside I went. The bear came back around the corner of the cabin just as I closed the door. Whew, too close, especially at night. He stayed wandering around the cabin several times. He even reached up to one of the windows, putting his claw marks on the window frame.

And another Red-breasted Nuthatch.

But, he eventually decided to keep going heading toward the garbage dump. Oh well, it was an exciting night. I hope you enjoyed this story from the past. That was a time before cell phones and not even a regular phone out there. So no way to call for help. Sometimes I think perhaps I was a bit crazy back then. Have a wonderful weekend everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.