Views by Valerie: Wild Kingdom 8-8

Last night after I posted the blog I was sitting in my chair by the open windows reading when I heard leaves crunching outside. It is usually the turkeys, or the deer and I almost didn't get up to go see if I could see anything, but something about the crunching sounded too loud and different. I wasn't really expecting to see much, it is really really dark out here and you can't see past the area of the porch light. I looked really hard where the noise was coming from and I thought I saw a black bear shaped blob in the dark...I was pretty sure I was seeing what I wanted to see when I saw the head shape of the blob turn which told me my blob wasn't a blob it was a B E A R!!!! BEAR I hollered, get the flashlight....hurry up! Larry shined the light and sure enough a black bear...we hollered for Mom and Ian and they came out on the back deck with us and the bear just kept on moving. He stopped behind a bush for a bit but then he just continued on, deciding he would go on up around the house....so we all ran through the house and out the front door onto the deck and there the bear was coming around the end of the house. It stopped and looked at us...had its mouth open and then went up the hill and then turned and went over into the meadow. It was unexpected in that the bear didn't just take off running when it saw us. I didn't take the time to figure out camera settings because I didn't figure I would have the time and I was watching the bear.

Ian sawing logs this morning.

Of course it was take the garbage out to the corner night...too much to ask that the bear would not notice. Larry got up early this morning before the garbage men arrived to go see what the situation was and sure enough our can and the neighbors can was dumped over and garbage was spread all over hell and gone. Lucky for Larry Connor had been visiting so he had the pleasure of also picking up poopy diapers. Why a bear needs to tear into the bags of soiled diapers...ew. Only our garbages were touched....the six up the hill and the others at the next corner were fine. Now we just hope the bear doesn't carry a calendar and come through on garbage day again.

I just never expected to have so much wildlife here on a daily basis. I have days when I hardly get much done because every time I look out the window I see something that I have to watch or get a picture of. Almost as soon as I was up and about I looked out the slider and there were both deer families...the single baby...Lumpy I call it, it has a bad lump under its jaw, abcess or something and the twins. The Mom's are letting the babies mingle now. As the babies were grazing and nibbling along came the five turkey girls. The fawns are so curious, especially Lumpy and it started up the hill after the turkeys and looked like it wanted to play with them. The turkey just fluffed and ran off.

Later I was at the kitchen sink and I looked out the window and there right below me were the twins, so close I could count their spots and they were right alongside the back deck. I snuck out carefully and snagged a few pictures...which I just remembered are still in the camera...oh well.

Mom headed home today...I guess she couldn't stand all this excitement...kidding. She was hoping to hook up with her friend. It was about the same temp today as it has been but it felt hotter, it must have been more humid.

I finished my lovely garden table last week so I just remembered to put the pictures on here. It turned out fun...the top I had planned to tile and I may still get around to it but I didn't want to look at a white top that I would see the dirt on so I drizzled the four colors all over the top and was thinking what to use to spread the paint around when my inner child rose up and I decided to finger paint. It was fun and I had to be careful to not make mud colors, then I thought my hearts looked empty and I added my hand prints. I told Larry I would be happy to give his boring work table a Val paint treatment...he wasn't interested.