Bear Redux

I took the dogs for a walk in the woods and ran into (almost literally) the bear I had just finished writing about in my previous post. At least I think it was the same bear. It appeared to be as big as the one Jen watched bang up our chicken feeder.

As the dogs took off after it, I remained where I was and watched the bear gallop in big wide turning arcs. It was moving fast, living proof, I guess, that they are capable of short bursts of speed. Maggie and Tessie, who are 5-year old lab mixes in incredible shape, kept their distance and were running no where near as fast as they could. As I was taking this all in and deciding whether or not I should run away(never turn and run from a bear, a voice said) the bear made another wide turn and was headed straight for me. Damn those dogs, I thought. They are going to get me killed. The only thing I could think to do was duck behind a tree, but that was scary too because I could not see the bear until it passed me - about 5 feet away - and then scampered up a tree. This all happened in about 20 seconds, but it plays out in my mind in slow motion, kind of like what you see in a movie dream sequence.

p.s. After a slow start, Jen and I are geared up to get this blog going. We hope to make it entertaining, educational, and a fun place to visit every once in a while. Jen’s in the kitchen as I write this making a soft herbed goat cheese from this week’s milk and herbs from our land. She’ll share how she makes the cheese and the herbs she uses soon. Even if you don’t have access to fresh goats’ milk, you’ll be able to use her recipe for herbing store bought chevre.

A Bear Visits Sunstone

There are many black bears in the Catskills. And this year, in particular, it seems more and more people are having close encounters with their ursine neighbors. Our good friend Sue Ann, for example, just the other other day looked out the window and saw a large black bear in her backyard. She’d seen bear footprints over the years, but never one in the flesh. I’m told they have a 25 mile range, so perhaps the one she scared away with primal shrieks (her words) was the same one Jen caught with its paw in our chicken feeder a few days later.

The chicken feeder hangs just inside the door at the top of the ramp the chickens use to enter and exit the coop. Here’s a picture of Geraldine and Lulu doing just that:

Jen was coming back from a walk in the woods when she saw what she thought was our neighbor’s dog near the coop.(Our neighbor’s dog killed 13 of our chickens last year, but that’s another story). It was twilight, when everything looks a bit shadowy around the edges and is hard to distinguish. As she got closer, what came into focus was a large 300 pound black bear with its meaty arm thrust through the chicken door. The bear ran away when it saw Jen, and left us with a galvanized steel feeder that now looks like this:

Bears apparently make rounds which means it will be back for more feed if it’s available. So we removed the feeder from the coop which gives us till winter to pound it back into shape. Our hens free-range all day, eating insects, worms, grass, and other good things that make their eggs tasty with deep yellow yolks that stand nice and high like the ones you see in old cartoons. In the spring and summer, they go through very little feed. In fact, it’s probably consumed mostly by Frenchy, the resident rooster who spends the majority of his time ushering around his girls and calling their attention to bugs and other crawly things that chickens like. To make sure he, and anyone else who wants it, gets their fill, we’ve decided to put out a pan of scratch under the tool shed where the chickens take their dustbaths. We just need to remember to take it in at night.

By the way, if you’re wondering what I mean about cartoon eggs…