Monday, August 07, 2006, 21:17
Mamma Mia!
The sky was clear and the sun had almost reached the western horizon yesterday evening as Randy and I headed for home following an afternoon at my sister and brother-in-law's farm. It was one of those clear, beautiful summer evenings when you can see for miles.
We had gone to church in the morning at the fairgrounds in town, and then we had stayed for the Foods Resource Bank picnic. Money raised from the picnic will go into the FRB fund. The fund needs all the help it can get, seeing as the corn crop planted this spring is pretty much ruined now due to the dry weather. We won't have much corn to sell to raise money, so maybe the picnic will help a little bit.
Our county is one of 19 in this part of the state that has been declared a disaster area because of the drought. The FRB money will go to third-world countries to help them learn to grow more and better food to sustain their families and villages.
After the picnic, we came home, made sure the horses had plenty of hay and water and that the dogs got out for potty opportunities, and then we headed down to my sister and brother-in-law's farm about 40 miles away.
My sister and brother-in-law's place is in a hilly area (my sister calls the hills of their farm "mountains") but on the way home we drive a straight stretch of road through a place called Stoner Marsh. There's a marsh on one side of the road and cornfields on the other.
We were about halfway along that stretch of road when, right out of the blue, Randy slammed on the brakes.
"That was a bear!" he said.
He threw the truck in reverse and stepped on the gas.
"What?" I said.
"A bear!" he said. "I saw a bear going into the cornfield."
We backed up about a hundred feet, and as Randy was putting on the brakes to stop the truck, I saw her.
A bear stood with her head just above the corn at the edge of the field.
We looked each other right in the eye.
I can say with certainty that we looked each other in the eye because we were only about 15 feet apart.
The corn is doing better down there than it is here. They had rain a couple of times, an inch or 1.5 inches, when we didn't get anything. Plus, the soil is heavier down there. This is by way of saying that the corn is fairly tall.
And the bear was looking over the top of the corn plants.
Briefly.
We held each other's gaze for a second or two. Long enough for me to register that her round black ears were lined with brown. And long enough to see the expression on her face. The bear looked surprised and alarmed and chagrined, all at that same time.
Then she was gone.
But she wasn't alone.
"Look!" I said, pointing.
Randy was just in the process of putting the truck in park. He didn't see the black bear looking at us over the corn.
"Look!" I said again. "It's her babies. She's got her babies with her."
"Two!" Randy said.
"No!" I said. "Three!"
And sure enough, the mother bear had three cubs with her. Triplets.
Momma must have been just out of sight on the other side of the row of corn, and she must have been calling her babies, because the three of them, after glancing at the truck, scurried after their mother.
The cubs were about as tall as Charlie. Not tiny babies. But not very big as bears go.
Momma bear must have been a good-sized black bear if her head was showing over the corn. And I don't even know if she was standing up all the way on her hind feet.
We watched for a few seconds as the cubs scurried after their mother.
This is the first time I've seen a bear in this part of the country. I've seen bears before in Minnesota. But not around here.
Earlier this summer, as we were sitting out in the backyard one evening, our neighbor came over in her car. She had seen a bear walking along the ditch and over the powerline hill toward our place and wanted to know if we had seen it. We hadn't, but we were sitting in back of the house. We went around to the front of the house. Kajun and Isabelle were running around and snorting. Obviously *they* had seen the bear. But it must have already gone into the woods.
A couple of years ago, other neighbors reported that they had their bird feeders raided in the spring by a bear. But we never saw that bear, either.
A momma bear! And her three cubs!
Of all the times not to have the digital camera with us. But no, it was sitting on the kitchen table. . .
It was so exciting that I had to call my sister on Randy's cell phone and tell her we had seen a mother bear and three babies.
My sister, brother-in-law, niece and her husband had gone to Yellowstone earlier this summer.
"I guess you don't have to go to Yellowstone to see wildlife," my sister said.
I wondered if anyone had reported seeing the bear and her three cubs to the Wisconsin DNR, so I called Wildlife Management this afternoon.
"No," the man said. "No one has reported seeing a bear in that area. What are the whereabouts again?"
I gave him the location.
"And she had three cubs," I said.
"Three!" he said. "Very cool. We've had reports of bears in other areas of the county. But not that far south. And she was by the wildlife area!"
The man from the DNR told me that the cubs will stay with their mother for another year. They will den up together this winter, and then later in the spring next year, she will urge them to go out on their own before breeding season. Bears, he said, only breed every other year.
"I turkey hunt in that area, so I will have to keep an eye out for her," he said. "It's easier to spot 4 bears traveling together than just one! The bears are definitely expanding their range around here."
I told him where we live and about a neighbor seeing the bear walking over the powerline hill.
"We get lots of reports of bears in your area of the county," he said. "But not as far south as where you saw the mother and cubs."
I suppose it might not be a bad idea to wear a bell when we walk through the trees and brush around here. And it might not be a bad idea to put a bell on Charlie's collar.
That way, if any bears are around, they will be aware that we are here. I'd hate to surprise a momma bear with her cubs. And not me so much, but I'd really hate to have Charlie surprise a momma bear with her cubs. She probably wouldn't like it, either.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Sunday, August 06, 2006, 06:32
Short Supply
I think our pumpkins are going to be in short supply this year.
The vines on Randy's Big Max pumpkins have grown amazingly well, in spite of the drought and hot weather. But that's mostly what there is: vines. There's only 3 or 4 pumpkins, and out of that patch in other years, he has gotten a dozen or more big pumpkins.
And not only are there few of them, but they're also going to be small. In other years, his big pumpkins have weighed 150 to 200 pounds.
This year, they'll most likely be right around 50 pounds.
The Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins probably won't have any pumpkins at all. They haven't even started setting pumpkins yet, and it's August already.
The volunteer white pumpkins (there were accidental seeds in the Jack-o-lantern package) have only a couple of pumpkins, too.
The pumpkins are blossoming, but they are not setting fruit. It's probably been too dry to set fruit, plus I don't think we have many honey bees around this year. In other years, venturing out to the pumpkin patch was a somewhat hazardous undertaking. The honey bees were everywhere, and ever since that one time years ago when a honey bee came after my horse, Kajun, and would not give up (followed him all around the yard, trying to sting his legs and belly), I have tried to keep a safe distance from honey bees.
The pumpkins are neither here nor there, except that Randy likes to grow them, and also, in years past, he has taken them down to the church for our fall pork dinner and sold them to raise money for the building fund.
Come to think of it, my acorn squash are not setting squash, either. Not yet. And if I'm going to have squash this fall, they're going to have to hurry!
Besides the pumpkins and squash, my watermelon vine has one Sugar Baby. Just one that looks like it might make it to maturity. The muskmelon do not have any melons set so far.
As for the sweet corn, the stalks have ears, but whether the ears fill out will be another question. We could end up with ears that have only a few kernels on them.
I was afraid the raccoons would destroy the sweet corn in the garden, but so far, they've been leaving it alone (knock on wood). Maybe the raccoons have left the area to find water. I know the coyotes have.
LeAnn R. Ralph