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| Can you see what's wrong with this picture? Buddy, the guard dog sleeps as the bear sneaks into the yard! |
First, there was the bear.
We were sitting at the supper
table with our two granddaughters and Mike casually said, “There’s a bear.”
The girls and I looked at
him but none of us responded. He’s always teasing us and sometimes his
teasing involves getting us to believe something that isn’t true so that he can
laugh at our naivety. The three of us looked at each other, then at Mike, and
as if we had a silent pact that we were not going to fall for Papa’s shenanigans,
we just kept on eating. He said it
again. Still, we ignored him.
“No, really! There’s a bear out there and it’s walking
across the backyard,” Mike said with more fervor. I tried not to respond because I didn’t want
to be an idiot, but I did glance out the window from my side of the table. (The girls were sitting where they could not
see out.)
“Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed!
“Girls! It is a bear! Look!
Look!”
By this time, we all ran to
the windows to watch the large, black bear ambling across the yard at a quick
pace. I suddenly thought about the dog,
and what might happen if Buddy realized the bear was in the yard. I envisioned a horrific confrontation and the
girls witnessing a blood bath.
“We have to do something,” I
whispered to Mike. “Where’s your gun?” I didn’t want Mike to shoot the bear, I
simply wanted him to scare it. I made
this clear to him.
The girls were watching with
great interest as the bear stopped as if on cue and sniffed the air. The breeze must have been blowing slightly in
his direction and he had a whiff of the dog.
The dog was oblivious. He did not
smell, hear or see the bear and lay sleeping.
“Mike! Do something! Get your gun and shoot it over the bear’s
head!” I was starting to get a little
freaked out about what might happen if the bear continued into Buddy’s territory,
and I had no idea where Mike had put the rifle.
Mike did something, all
right. He clapped his hands loudly and
the sound carried through the open windows.
The bear turned immediately as if someone were shooting at him and went
back into the woods from where he came. I
was so relieved.
A few seconds passed and the
breeze shifted. Buddy then smelled the
bear and jumped to his feet running right to the spot where the bear had gone
back into the woods. With his tail over
his back and his signature warning bounce on all four feet, he barked a warning
to the bear. I laughed.
“Great guard dog,” I told
Mike and the girls sarcastically. I was relieved that
things had worked out the way they did and hoped the bear did not come back.
The bear had looked disoriented,
and we think that maybe he somehow found himself on our side of the fence and
then followed the fence line down bringing him to our yard. It wasn’t the first time we had a bear
in our yard, but it was the first time since we had Buddy that a bear has
been in our yard. They cross the meadow
across from our house and on occasion, they have stood at the road and investigated
our yard but were dissuaded by the barking of the dogs from entering.
Then there was the
snake.
I walked down the steps to
the basement. I do that many times per
day. My laundry room is there. My cellar is there. All the kitchen gadgets that I cannot fit
into my small kitchen are stored on shelves there. I run up and down the steps dozens of times a
day. I had sent the girls outside to
wait on us as we finished up a few things before taking them back to the Staunton
area. I made my way quickly down the
steps to find Mike standing with a “larger than what we usually find in the
cellar” snake wriggling at the end of a cast iron, woodstove poker.
“Look at this,” he
said.
“Oh cool,” I replied and
kept going. Snakes might startle me, but
I do not let myself be frightened of them.
The non-poisonous snakes we have had in the basement, I have
relocated. They serve a purpose and
personally, I like snakes better than mice.
“No, look at it,” Mike
insisted. “I think it’s a copperhead.”
“Oh no,” I replied! “That’s not good.”
He put the snake on the
concrete floor of the basement and we peered at it.
“Yeah. I think you’re right,” I agreed.
We stared at it a bit longer,
talking about it, and then finally, Mike hit it over the head with the cast
iron poker. It twisted and twitched but
it was dying.
“Just leave it there,” I suggested. “I don’t want the girls to be scared. We can carry it out later.”
The week ended with two packs of coyotes calling back and forth to each other and a new calf being born before sunrise.
Life is full of unexpected surprises that we can either see as adventures or obstacles. I'm so fortunate that I had grandparents who taught me by their example that life in its entirety is meant to be an adventure and our attitude is what makes the difference.