by Mrs. Cog

It’s that time of year again when the ridiculous abundant growth around our cabin must be cut back after the Spring explosion of blooms and shoots. I call this the Amazon Rainforest effect because for weeks in the first part of the growing season here it pours and anything green sprawls.

Armed with garden scissors, pruners and loppers I recently began whittling away at the azaleas and honeysuckle. Before long I found myself in Edward Scissorhands mode and was reshaping what are now giant rhododendron bushes, more like trees. In the end several cherry trees had been trimmed as well as another swipe at the prolific kiwi trees. It took two trips with the tractor and cart to remove all the branches when finished.

My first sunflower patch is growing quite well, perhaps too well. Almost twelve feet tall, they haven’t begun to flower yet. Cog has pointed out a few times they are about to cover our smaller solar panels and I may need to choose between flowers or some power. I sassed him and asked if he couldn’t just move the panels lol.

Interesting trivia, the largest sunflower plant is directly in front of the dryer vent. With traces of cotton lint on the stalk, it seems fine with being blasted with warm air even on the hottest days. I’ll follow up with an alert if the sunflower seeds taste like dryer sheets. :-)

We are in the beginning of berry month here. Each day a few more blackberries on the end of each cluster turn from a bright red to black and its shaping up to be the most productive harvest since we moved here. My self-appointed mission is to beat the black bear to each of the five berry patches in and along the edges of the woods near here.

When last I ran into Teddy, the bear, I fussed at him from the safety of my back deck. I swear he rolled his eyes at me as he turned to saunter off. This is consistent with my neighbor’s encounter with him when the bear walked right on past her. Teddy would prefer to avoid people if possible. As such, each time I approach a berry patch, I begin singing, usually Rogers & Hammerstein, at the top of my lungs. No really.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens… ♫

https://youtu.be/ikpj24WMOLw

Not shy about helping himself to local produce, Teddy has been climbing the neighbor's trees again, or rather, bending the trees to his will. I wonder if he ate any of the peaches after bringing down his conquest as they weren’t even close to ripening.

Canning into the late hours many evenings, we are well into pickle, jam and soup season here. Cog’s request for sausage and peppers turned out marvelous with several new recipe additions to the cupboard, both hot and mild. I snuck zucchini into the spicy sausage mix, but it’s so delicious, he won’t be able to stop himself.

It was a dark, stormy night. I was home alone. I’ve seen some spectacular lightening over Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs and watched storms roll in from the west on the Outerbanks of North Carolina. But never have I seen such quick and sustained flashes of light as the storms produced here last night. Did I mention I was home alone? Things were most definitely going "bump" in the night.

After more than a half hour of a light show that would rival Hollywood CGI, I stepped onto the front porch and began rolling a video recording of the sky. Less than a minute later, my footage ended abruptly as there were loud noises behind me and I suspected I was not alone. Thoroughly frightened for a moment, I dashed back inside and locked the door behind me. Cog says locks are to keep the honest people out. Perhaps I was hoping Teddy was an honest bear?

It was early today when I stepped back outside to call Tramp, our coon cat, who had gone MIA as sometimes happens with strange energetic storms. It was then that I saw what had been crashing behind me last night. Had I not been caught off guard, that bear and I would have had words.

Teddy left four trees with new damage this round.

Clearly, there is something in the trees in our side yard that bear wants. This is his third trip (see here for his prior escapades) back to the same place over the course of a month and each time he does more damage. We are assuming there is one tasty smelling bee hive in there somewhere, as he bothers nothing else on our property.

Before we bought our place here, we knew there had been occasional bear visits. As the former owner informed us, as well as websites like the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries, black bears are after the food and somewhat co-exist with the mountain people if certain rules are observed. Robert Frost would approve, “good fences make good neighbors.” In other words, lines should be drawn.

Teddy hiding in the same Cypress trees May 28, 2015.

The few distant neighbors we have express varying views on the bears. One neighbor is scared of the bears and insists everyone should keep dogs to scare the bears away. Another takes quiet walks early in the morning and has crossed paths closely with the bear. She meditates and the bear continues on his way. Some locals have informed us that firing a round from a gun into the air or ground will permanently scare them away.

To my knowledge there are two bears in the immediate (rather large) area. One is our Teddy who is moshing in our cypress trees. At about 300 to 350 pounds, we know he is not the really BIG bear that people are describing at better than 500 pounds. Even our teen drove by the larger bear on her way home one day and says he is just enormous.

I’m not afraid of the bears. I will definitely use the buddy system and go armed when gathering berries this year. The wild blackberries grow on our property as well as all the empty neighboring ones, almost everywhere open land meets the forest. The allure to assume one is safe because we can stand in a wide open field or our lawn and not actually enter the woods to pick berries is a trick. I fully expect the race is on to see whether Teddy can beat me to each berry patch as they ripen over the next month.

The North American Bear Center says one black bear will eat 30,000 berries per day on a good year. Sorry Teddy, but that’s a lot of jam! You’ve got some competition here. I estimate one day of Teddy’s berries could keep us in jam, jelly and berry syrup for more than two years.

Stay tuned for updates in the ongoing bear saga at Chez Cog.

Disclosure: no bear or human was harmed in the creation of this story.

Our 18 pound Maine Coon Cat, Tramp, was acting very weird. True, he is always a tad off since he thinks he is human. But yesterday he was pointing like a Labrador Retriever on a duck hunting trip. I took one quick look in the direction of his laser focus and saw the oddest thing. There was a bear’s head sticking out from the tree line in our yard, but the body was invisible inside the foliage. He looked like ET hiding in the stuffed animal toy pile with only a disembodied head to give him away.

I ran into the house and collected my camera, Cog and the child unit. Before Teddy had a chance to realize we were on to him, we were all on the elevated back deck clicking away and shouting various greetings and criticisms. It didn’t take long until Teddy had enough of the crazy humans and began his exit stage right!

As Teddy lumbered out of the thicket of Leland Cypress trees, we had a chance to assess and appreciate his size. At a youthful 300 pounds or so, he could easily be the same (former) adolescent cub who walked right past a neighbor as she was taking a leisurely walk last fall. She snapped the image below of that close encounter.

The (same?) bear in these parts last year.

While Teddy was making his exit from the yard, he stopped twice and turned to look at the loud and obnoxious people who were shouting in his direction. For a few seconds he soaked us in and I think he decided we were neither a threat nor of any particular interest to him. He resumed his departure and in less than a minute had disappeared into the woods and out of sight.

By this point Tramp was completely freaked out. “Ma-wow, MA-WOW!” If Google Translate deciphered Coon Cat I assume the English would come out roughly as, “I TOLD you there was a ginormous furry thing in the woods! I betcha believe me now huh? Did you SEE the size of that thing?”

While we have consistently seen bear sign of every sort over the three years we’ve been on the mountain, not once did we actually see Teddy in full living color until now. Even at a distance of 75 feet he was most impressive and not something we would wish to bump into up close and personal. We suspect Tramp feels the same way considering how closely he shadowed us the entire next day.