Look Out Kids! There's a Bear on the Loose!

First of all I’d like to dedicate this post to Tom & Amanda Crandall, my friends from Alaska. Through their influence and guidance, I’ve learned most of what I know about bears. The rest of what I know has come from reading the Berenstein Bears as a child.

(Side note: From the Berenstein Bears I’ve learned the following things):

1. Bears eat honey.
2. Bears like to have adventures.
3. Bears go to doctors too.
4. Bears learn moral lessons from their mistakes.

So there’s a black bear loose somewhere in Tuscawaras County here in Ohio. That’s not normal. This isn’t “Bear Country”. First this curious little fellow was seen roaming the local streets of New Philadelphia, Ohio -- a sizable town in its own right. Next, he was spotted running through the local park – a favorite play area for children, with pool, carousel, rides, playgrounds. Then the bear was seen at the local beach at Atwood Lake, just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from our house!! That brazen bear swam across the lake and disappeared into the surrounding public forest. That made us all a little nervous. Our farm boundaries lie on the Tuscarawas/Carroll County border. So that freaking bear could show up any time on our doorstep. It doesn’t bode well that the guy over the hill from us raises honey bees!!! Holy Majoly!! Is anyone else sensing why 2+2 = bear here?!!!

Then there was silence…. No bear sightings. Nothing.

And then all of a sudden the bear was seen hanging out at the New Philadelphia high school. Again, that’s where children are. I think we can all agree that no one wants to see the bear hurt or hunted down. I have a great respect for bears myself –especially after watching “Grizzly Man” and seeing how they eat people. But why, and I ask this with all respect, CAN’T ANYONE FIND THE FREAKING BEAR???? I mean he was just out at the high school last week, we know he’s around!
Kevin and I have been discussing this for weeks. We expect to be seeing him very soon, in the front window of our favorite coffee shop, drinking a macchiato and reading the New York Times. Stranger things have happened I guess.

(2^nd Side note: I drive back and forth from Tuscarawas/Carroll Counties almost every day. I almost ran over a fox 2 weeks ago, sadly I did maim a baby bunny, and I just have a lingering feeling that some foggy evening as I’m driving home from work --- I’m going to hit the bear. I’m going to be responsible for killing the bear. I hate killing animals. Ask Kevin, I was crying after I hit the bunny. I can see it now in my mind: I hit the bear. The local T.V. crews are interviewing me, and the only words I can utter are, “…I can’t believe I hit the bear….”)

Look, all I’m saying is that I would really like it if someone, who has official bear-catching capabilities, would find the bear and remove him to a more bear-appropriate place (before I inadvertently hit him with my car). Perhaps Alaska?....

Nature Meets A Garden Hoe

So, our family was enjoying a peaceful evening out on the back patio earlier this week. We were eating pie, because my mom is amazing and makes pies very regularly. As we were talking we gradually became aware of some very angry twittering going on in the tree beside us. All mom says: "The wrens are angry about something." As the twittering, fails to subside, we go out and begin to look around the wren's bird house. Sadly, there was the last 1/3 of a black snake hanging out of the bird house entrance. My first reaction was to yell loudly for my dad, which I did. It was interesting how we began to work as a team to get the snake out of the house, and hopefully prevent any eating of the wren babies. Dad went to get the necessary tools, but I saw that he had neglected to get, in my mind at least the most crucial of snake tools, the snake noose.

Yes, we have a snake noose. There is a long legacy in my family of snake disdaining and snake disposal, and sometime during my childhood my dad felt it would be an asset to have an actual noose. So he made one, and we do use it. But I digress...

So back to the snake story at hand. My dad takes the house down and begins to dissemble it, inevitably forcing the snake to leave the house. My dad was waiting with the garden hoe. The snake didn't make it. Afterwards, my dad felt kind of bad. Black snakes are really good to have around. The eat rodents and other wily small creatures, but they also eat baby birds. There's one thing my mom can't abide -- snakes in our house or in the bird's house.

So hopefully that was our snake adventure for the summer. Usually there's one a year. There's an infamous story about my mom and the snake that dared dome into the house during my sister's wedding preparation. It wasn't pretty. My mom found it in our bathroom closet, and as she startled it by coming into the room, it began to descend down the hole from whence it came. She, being under a great deal of stress from wedding things, had had enough. She grabbed the snake and pulled hard.

Now, some of you may know that snakes' scales cling very hard to surfaces. It's really hard to get them off of something they've attached themselves to. That big black snake was no match for my mom, though. She pulled hard, and scales came flying off, and that snake was hers. Now some of you have met my mom. She's great -- the most graceful, loving, sweet, motherly mom you'll ever find. We all saw another side of her that day though. She marched down to the garage to find my dad, snake in hand. She flung it at his feet, and declared that if he didn't dispose of that snake she was going to get out her scissors and cut it into a million pieces. To this day, my dad swears all he heard was undiscernable angry noises coming from her lips. We laugh about it now...

Any way, I know they serve a grand purpose in the nature cycle. But I think snakes are icky.