Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Steve’s Journal #21-03. Bears.
Hello to all of you and welcome back to my journal. Looking out my cabin window at the snow covered trees makes me think of warmer days with summer greens and the sun high in the sky shining it’s warmth through the branches of the pine trees. Ahh, so nice, beautiful, peaceful and bears looking in the window. Oops, what was that again? Yes, I have many true stories regarding me and bears, today we will take a look at one of them…
It’s a beautiful summer morning so I decided to head out for a nice early morning drive and stop at one of my favorite little restaurants for breakfast. However, before getting that far there was a small garbage disposal area that sometimes had bears roaming around. I finally had a camera along so thought it might be worth stopping in there for a while and see if I might be able to get some pictures of bears. I had even seen cinnamon bears at this location on previous stops when I didn’t have a camera with me and I really wanted to get a picture of one. There is nothing really special about cinnamon bears, they are just black bears but their fur is brown instead. They are uncommon around here, but are still seen regularly.
I got to the road leading in to the disposal area and drove in slowly. If there was any bears here I didn’t want to scare them away. I got in and parked my car. This looks great, there were 4 bears that morning, 2 typical black bears and 2 cinnamon bears. Both black bears were on the other side of the garbage area so nothing to worry about there. The 2 cinnamon bears were both fairly close. I got out of the car but left the door open in case I needed to get back inside quickly. Bears don’t usually attack people, but, they can and sometimes do, so it’s best to be careful. I was watching the larger of the two cinnamon bears hoping to get a picture of that one. Meanwhile the smaller one ended up on the other side of my car. Hmm, a little too close, but he wandered off into the trees.
I was taking pics of the other one and my car door kept bumping me. I must be on a bit of an upgrade, that door always would close easily then. I kept pushing it back and it would keep bumping against me. It was kind of annoying after a bit. Finally I turned around and there was a big black bear sitting on the other side of my car door and he kept pushing it against me! I am glad he didn’t decide to walk around the door and push me instead. Perhaps he thought it was a fun game we were playing? I guess I should have been paying more attention to the black bears that were further away. This was one of them and the other was now at the front of my car and the cinnamon bear was coming towards me as well.
I decided it might be a good idea to get back inside the car at that point, which I did, as quickly as possible without getting the bears upset. The bear playing with my car door was the largest of the group and once I was safely inside my car, he stood up and leaned on the car and shook it a bit. I honked the horn, but it didn’t bother any of them. Since I only had a small car I figured that bear could probably turn it upside down if he really wanted to do so. I didn’t wait to find out. I started my car and left. I did manage to get a couple decent pics of the cinnamon bear, but because it was an older camera they are not perfect.
This is something that happened several years ago, I’m smarter now, which means I would do it again, but I would watch the other bears more closely. Oh well. I would like to get some good pics of bears, but from a safe distance. Have a wonderful day folks and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Coffee At Steve’s Country #14.
Good morning everyone! I hope you are all well and enjoying your day! The coffee, and tea, is ready for you all, please help yourself and relax with us for a few minutes. Heavy clouds are here again this morning so it is quite dark still. The chickadees and one red-breasted nuthatch are here. Jasper also showed up nice and early, with no sign of the ‘other’ squirrel. Perhaps Jasper finally scared him off for good yesterday. But we’ll have to wait and see on that one. We are supposed to get a little snow today, maybe 2 inches (5cm), right now we are getting some freezing rain. There is already a light layer of ice covering everything. If we do get the snow then it will stick to that ice and it won’t be so slippery.
But if we don’t get the snow then it will be treacherous walking down to the river. I did go for a walk to the river yesterday since the sun was shining and it was a nice day with a high of 32F (0C). But even with that temp it felt cold down at the river. The other day there was less ice then usual and yesterday there was a lot more ice than usual. However, it was very thin ice. But with the colder weather moving in beginning tomorrow, then the river will begin to freeze, at least on the wide portion where there isn’t much current. The water level on the lake is low and because we had such a dry fall there isn’t much water coming through the dam.
Because of that there isn’t much current in the river so it freezes more easily. It will be interesting to see how much of the river will freeze this year. From the lake to the dam the river doesn’t freeze and below the dam it won’t freeze, but how far down the river changes from year to year. I didn’t see any ducks yesterday, but there was 2 nice eagles flying around. Oh well. Maybe I will write about yesterday’s walk later. Certainly not many birds around this morning, rather odd with bad weather on the way. Maybe that means we will miss that snow. But then it means it will remain slippery. Oh well. Jasper seems to have gone back home. There are 6 blue jays here right now, that’s nice for sure. I hope you enjoy today’s pics, have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 