Bear on My Stair
Mama Bear Back in the Woods
It’s been an exciting two weeks. We’ve had a total of three bear encounters during that time, the first one of the bear family from across the road, which I wrote about yesterday. Then, this past week we’ve had our first sighting of this mama bear and her tiny but agile little cub. The attraction on both occasions, was our garbage cans. These bears have just come out of their winter sleep (black bears do not hibernate, according to Laura Klappenbach, About.com Guide to Wildlife.) But since their sleep lasts as long as seven months, once they wake they are bound to be very hungry, and the mother bears need to find food for their cubs. The first time my son saw mom and baby was around 3 a.m. last week, and she had gotten into the garbage can in front of our garage. When he shined the flashlight at her, they ran around the corner of the garage and down the hill to the dense forest on the west of our house (the area you can see in this photo). He opened the garage door from the inside and picked up the stuff scattered around the can then rolled it back into the garage. He discovered a bit later that she was right around the corner watching him all the time, while her cub was scampering up and down an oak tree next to our deck on the west side.
Today, my son and I went to our local store to pick up some grub for a BBQ tomorrow. There was a stand next to the highway outside the parking lot where a man had a bunch of chainsawed bears about two feet tall, standing upright holding a welcome sign (which turns around to say “Go Away!”) It was a classic case of spree buying, but we love our wildlife and I’ve always wanted a bear anyway. My son put it on one of the stairs next to the house about three stairs down from our front porch, which is about 5′x 7′. There’s an old wooden chair on the porch with a small glass-top table next to it where I have my Diet Coke or coffee and a cigarette (yeah, I know) first thing in the morning and late at night. Tonight I was watching some recorded TV shows, and didn’t plan to go outside the current one finished. However I heard several crashing, clattering sounds coming from the stairs, so I got up and opened the front door. There was this HUGE bear no further than six feet away, standing on the stairs looking back at me. I can truthfully say that I now know the meaning of sheer terror. I slammed the door and locked it, then ran to Lance’s bedroom which has a window wall right next to the staircase. I had ordered an air horn after the first bear encounter, and Lance grabbed it from the bookcase on the wall next to the front door. He gave it one blast (which undoubtedly woke every neighbor in a two mile radius), then opened the door. Mama bear was crouched down at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him, with no obvious intention of leaving. So much for bear horn deterrents.
A bit later, after my thumping heart had slowed down, we went out on our deck with the high-powered spotlight we had bought at the same time as the bear horn. We saw mama going around the corner of the house so we walked to the back end of the deck. Sure enough, she was back down in her “den” territory. I took five pictures, but even though the spotlight lit the area well, the camera cound’t “see” that far. I was able to tweak one of the five photos enough to see mama bear, but the ones I tried to get of Junior in the tree looked like some child’s spatter paint with black and gray paint and smears.
We knew that theoretically there were deer, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, and bears in our forests when we moved here last November. In the six months we’ve been here we’ve now seen all the above except for a mountain lion (although we heard one screeching one night). If that had been on our stairs tonight, I would’t be here to tell the tale.
Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight.
Cat Food Recalls and Bears Oh My!
Bear Family Crossing Road
What does this have to do with bears, you ask? The first Diamond Pet Food recalls only mentioned dog and puppy foods. Although I started covering the recalls because many of my readers also own dogs, cat foods had specifically not be mentioned. Alissa Wolf, the About.com Guide to Pet Shops emailed me and said she’d talked to a Diamond media rep, who told her that “ALL dry pet foods (dog and cat) manufactured between Dec. 9, 2011 and April 7 are being recalled.” Shortly thereafter, I received three emails from Amazon.com, that two cat foods I had bought had been recalled. I still had about a pound of Taste of the Wild Venison and Salmon left in a gravity feeder I keep in my bedroom, which I share with Jenny. By then, more humans than pets had been stricken with salmonella after handling pet food. So I used extra careful precautions in disposing of the TOTW, wearing latex gloves, then scrubbing my arms up to the elbows, and washing the feeder thoroughly with hot soapy water with bleach. I then double wrapped the suspect cat food in plastic grocery bags, tied them tightly and tossed them in the kitchen trash container.
That night around 11:30 when I had fallen asleep watching TV (as usual), my son shook my arm and stage-whispered “Mom, look out the window. There’s bears going through our garbage!” He shone a flashlight through the window and I counted five black bears altogether, including one very small cub. Most of the bears ran across the road and into an undeveloped piece of forested land. However the largest male tipped over the fiberglass garbage tote and dove headfirst into the detritus, coming out with a suspiciously familiar plastic grocery bag. He raced across the road, a bulky Ursus version of Man ‘O War. It was too dark to get a photo, but since then we’ve aquired a high-powered spotlight, and I’m just waiting. But I’ve been worrying about that baby bear ever since, that he might fall victim to salmonella.
So now you know the story behind the story of the latest pet food recalls.
Reading Food Labels aka “Where’s the Beef?”
Perhaps this should be subtitled “And Creating Understandable Food Labels.” Case in point: last week my son and I were shopping at our favorite (and only) food store in our town. This store prides itself on selling “natural” food, which is a bit of a change from our old Safeway store in our former home town. OTOH, Safeway did have some great sales, and I miss the old specials on my drink vice of choice: Diet Decaf Coke, which actually is just flavored water with some fizz to spice it up. But aside from Diet Sprite, or the occasional diet rootbeer, I crave it and go into withdrawal when my 12 pack runs empty.
But back to Holiday Foods. On the trip in question, I was browsing the pre-packaged daily specials in their deli aisle, where I came upon some truly yummy-looking stuffed bell peppers. They’re one of my favorite meals, but I don’t always take the time to prepare them from scratch. It wasn’t until we got home and I was ready to bake them for dinner, that I read the label for cooking instructions. They were:
Cook as desired until done
(broil, grill, bake, pan fry, or microwave)
Hokay! How nice to have choices. But I can’t imagine pan frying a half of a stuffed bell pepper. Imagine how many times you’d have to flip it around to make sure all the sides of the pepper were nicely cooked, not to say keeping the meat filling from falling out when you browned the top. I opted for bake, which is how I always cook my own bell peppers and figured 350 @ about 45 minutes should do the trick. I wanted to make sure the ground beef was nice and brown on the top, and had lost all the pink in the middle. Then my eye wandered back up to the ingredients, which I’d overlooked at the store:
Red and green bell peppers, onion, black pepper, celery, and parsley.
Yikes! Where’s the beef? I should have known better. After all this is a natural (health) food store. But my son was looking forward to our dinner as much as I, and I could just see the disappointment on his face after his first bite. Strangely enough, though, the meal looked like (ground beef) stuffed peppers, and tasted like the real deal. Lance didn’t even know that it didn’t contain any meat until I told him, then he was kinda angry with me for “trying to trick him.” But since he’s really a vegetarian at heart anyway, he thought it was pretty good. But I still thought the complete lack of cooking instructions was pretty funny.
Price Reduced for Lucy, the Loch Ness Llama
Lucy, the Loch Ness Llama is available on Amazon Kindle, and can be read on almost every e-reader. Since it is intensely-illustrated by the talented artist Martine Carlesen with over 70 color images, many of them full-page, it is best to read in full color. Amazon provides a free app for reading e-books online in color.
Lucy and Her Lambs
I’ve just recently reduced the Kindle price from $5.99 to $2.99 – a real bargain compared to the print book price of $42.65. Yeoch!
From a reader’s review:
This beautiful and charming book tells the story of Lucy, the Loch Ness Llama. It’s perfect for children of all ages, beautifully written and illustrated. This is an ideal book to read as a bedtime story, and one your children will love for years to come.
I love it and have bought several to give as gifts.
I’d really appreciate it if anyone who purchases my book would take a few minutes to write a review. Most readers take reviews into consideration before spending their hard-earned cash on a book. I always do, and the more positive reviews I see, the more likely that I’ll buy the book.
(This message was paid for by Lucy, the Llama, Victor, the wise-guy fish, and all the little lambs who adore Lucy.)
Spring is Here!
Flowering Tree in Parking LotI wish I could have said that this picture is of a tree flowering in our yard, but we’ll all have to wait a few years for that – unless I come into a small fortune and can buy a large flowering speciman in the near future.
It’s ironic that just two days ago, we had a lovely layer of snow on all the giant pine trees around our home, on our deck, and the roofs and hoods of our cars. And today is the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The Vernal Equinox, which I’ve always thought of in the back of my mind as happening on March 21st. (Have you ever seen anyone writing of a thought coming from the front of their mind?)
In any case, all this thinking is dizzy-making, and the truth is that I have seen evidence of Spring for a few weeks, in new growth on tree branches, red buds of blossoms on some yet to be identified bushy plants in my front yard. And, of course, several does who frequent our yard with what looks to be swollen bellies. My neighbor across the road tells me that when they first bring their new-born fawns by, the fawns are simply adorable, still sporting their spots.
I’ve also been warned about the incipient dangers of Spring in the foothills. Spring brings the mama black bears down from the hills with their cubs, and you do not want to get between a mama bear and her babies. And rattlesnakes. I’ve had too many experiences with rattlesnakes when I was a child, and I hope I never see another one again. Our local veterinarian says she sees dogs bitten by rattlesnakes fairly frequently, but rarely a cat. That remains to be seen, but when we put up our cat-safe fencing in their small yard off the side of our garage, we’ll be sure to first make sure there are no rattlesnake dens lurking in the dirt.
But enough about the scary stuff. Today I prefer to think in terms of daffodils, daisies, lilac trees, and Easter baskets. Gosh, it was Christmas just a few weeks ago. Wasn’t it?
Snow!
It’s been raining steadily for several days now, with no sign of the sun. I haven’t minded because the possibility of drought has been very real and we’re still below the normal rainfall for this time of year. Also, we need a good snowpack in the mountains to help fill the lakes and reservoirs next year (to say nothing of the skiers and the snowboarders.)
We are supposed to be in for several more days of rainfall in our area, and since I work at home that’s fine with me. But about an hour ago, my son ran by the door to the office, yelling, “Look out the window, Mom. It’s snowing!” Yeah, sure, I thought, but got up anyway, out of curiosity. Outside my bedroom window, were huge falling nickle-sized flakes. Lance and I hugged each other and exulted over our very first snow in our own home. (I’m not counting the freak snowstorm when Lance was about 10 and we lived in San Ramon.) That was different because it was so unusual, but up here where we live now, it’s supposed to snow now and then – rarely, I expect, but sometimes.
I tried to take some pictures, but it was almost dark, so I don’t think they will turn out, so the pictures in my memory will have to do.
In just four more days it will be Spring, with Easter just around the corner, so we both feel particularly blessed that we saw a taste of snow in our own yard. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning to see a real winter wonderland outside. One can always dream. . .
A Slice of Americana
In November, 2011, my youngest son, Lance, and I moved about 75 miles from a waterfront home on the California Delta, to a much smaller home on a much bigger lot, almost two acres of forested land in the California Gold Country, about 50 miles southwest of Lake Tahoe. Our lot comes complete with squirrels, deer, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, raccoons, and black bears, although so far, I have only seen the deer, along with thousands of birds. It also comes with a gated community, and a small shopping center only about a mile down the road.
The Holiday food store is part of a small chain of Natural Food Stores, and is owned by its employees. It’s the only game in town, but as it is almost as big and well-stocked as our old Safeway store, we shop there several times a week. Although we’re newcomers, the clerks and other workers are friendly and accomodating. The clerk at the deli alreadu recognized Lance and starts his turkey and ham wrap sandwich when she sees him come in.
The other day, Lance had to make a quick trip to the store to pick up some canned cat food for the boys, and orange juice and Diet Decaf Coke for me (my mainstay during my workday.) The clerk asked him about me, and they chatted for a couple of minutes. Then after she had checked him out, she reached under the counter and brought out a small 5″ x 8″ lined yellow tablet, and handed it to Lance. “Your Mom left this behind when you were in here last Friday,” she said. “She probably would like to have it back.”
Boy howdy! That tablet not only had several old shopping lists, but my wireless network IP and password, lists of topics I had been keeping for future articles, and a couple of important addresses. It was one of several “Mayberry moments” we’ve had since moving here. Back in our old community, the clerk would have thrown it in the trash, or worse case scenario, hacked into my wireless network. I absolutely LOVE this place!
