Day 301 - Wednesday October 10, 2012

I forgot to mention this story from yesterday....Mark had called me to say he was headed home from work which should take about 35 minutes.  Sometime after that he called me and he didn't have good reception.  I finally figured out that he was in the driveway calling and I immediately thought there must be a bear in the driveway.  I could catch a word here and there and he said window and porch so we ran to the front door and looked out the leaded glass (not ideal) and there was indeed a black bear just off the porch.  The bear moved towards the grass so Tyler opened the door and stood on the porch and got a picture with his phone.  We all stood there and watched it for a bit and then it finally ran off around the side of the house.  Mark came in then and he and Tyler ran to the back deck and watched the bear walk around the back of the house on the path and then start down the path to the lake.  Part way down he veered off the trail into the neighbors yard.  Mark called to the neighbors, who were in their hot tub, but they didn't hear him.  The bear continued downhill to the beach and we came inside at that point.  Then Mark then told us his experience before he called on the phone.  He had parked his truck and headed across the driveway into the house.  He heard some noise and thought it was a deer.  However, as he rounded the corner he saw a beer trying to climb a tree and the bear was looking at him.  He quickly turned and bee lined it to the truck, not looking back!  The bear meandered around a bit while he called us and then the story above explains it from there. As Bridgett has been re-telling this story she always says there was a little bear cub in the yard.  Well, that "little" bear was probably two years old or so and weighed about 250 pounds; not something you would want to wrestle!  Bridgett always says if a bear attacked her she'd just kick it in the head.  Hum........ Always something exciting happening! We've seen a bear in the yard every year for the past four or so.  So most for our neighbors told us they'd never seen bear around here before although the Fish and Game guys said there are definitely bear around here.  At least this one was a black bear and not a grizzly like last year! As long as we are on nature stories around the house, we are being deluged by hornets!  Enough said on that point--hopefully soon that story will be over as well, with only this one little bit of a reminder.