Three more sleeps

With just three more sleeps until the big day (the final move to the island, with all critters and household effects), things are somewhat chaotic as I try to pack, repair, clean, tend the lawn, and keep the critters' routines as normal as possible.

The weather is cooperating - touch wood - with cooler temperatures than last week, but no rain (again, touch wood). It is near perfect weather for me - fairly sunny with a light breeze, warm enough for short sleeves but not so hot to make me lethargic.

Our main event around here has been the bears - they are plentiful this year, and very visible. I think something may have happened to the mama of triplets, spotted with the cubs a few weeks ago; we now see one or more of the cubs frolicking in the fields and gorging on the skunk cabbage and other delicacies, but no sign of mama. One of the cubs, either a large one from this year or a small one from last, appears injured - he is limping, and falls over frequently. We are trying to get help for him, but apparently the sole conservation officer responsible for checking it out is too busy elsewhere. It is worrisome.

I have not seen the three cubs together, nor even in twos, though a difference in the size of the injured one and the playful one assures me I am not just seeing the same single bear. I see one or another of the cubs at least twice a day, and the huge papa bear pays a visit every few days.

Yesterday morning, this cutie greeted me as I opened the drapes on the patio doors:



The dogs and I are enjoying halcyon days in the pasture, the dogs running and playing and rolling (and trying to reach the bear and coyote scat before I do), and I am taking pleasure in watching them. Birds are everywhere - hawks and eagles and woodpeckers, sparrows and swallows and robins and wrens. One new songster has joined us, in the trees at the top of the hill - with a clear, sweet, melodic song that I don't recognize. I have only caught a glimpse of him - smaller than a sparrow, larger than a chickadee - but was unable to identify his colours or silhouette from his perch at the very tip of a tall tree.

I saw Brazen Coyote with a female a few weeks ago, and have not seen them since, but I think they have produced kits as there is lots of coyote scat, in adult and kit sizes, on the path through the pasture.

And the pasture grasses and flowers are growing exponentially. Some days, keeping track of the dogs is a game of "Where's Waldo?"



Daisies are appearing in profusion - white in the pasture, deep yellow by the sides of the road:






The llamas next door watch us closely - I think they still search for signs of Martin. Sorry, llamas, Martin finally has a herd of his own.




Finally, I am close to getting an acceptable picture of Oliver in flowers, to complete my set of each of my dogs in the pasture. I do love photos of dogs in fields of yellow flowers!

Why the Dogs Didn't Get their Pasture Run this morning:

There is a sloth of bears in this area this year (yes, I checked, a group of bears is called a sloth or a sleuth!!!). In the last ten days the neighbours and I have seen a mama with triplets, a HUGE male bear (the largest I've ever seen - and I've seen a lot of bears!), and this one, who appears to be either another adult female or a young male.

Bears don't usually share territory, but the plethora of development projects in this area may well have forced some out of their customary habitat. Cubs generally stay with the mama for about two years, after which they are chased off to make their own way in the world. The one in the photo above might be the remaining one of triplets born two years ago.

And by the way, you three bears.....

Do you MIND not leaving three HUGE piles of scat right on my lawn when you are passing through??? As if I don't have enough poop to scoop around here with four dogs, twelve pigs, a cat and an alpaca. Sheesh!!! What a mess!!

BEARS!!! AND MORE BEARS!!!!

The bears in our area are fattening up for their long winter's nap, and there are lots of fruit and nut trees around to help them accomplish their goal. Unfortunately, many of those fruit and nut trees are right on my property, my neighbours' properties, and the vacant fields across the road.

This morning, just as dawn was beginning to show, Charley started making whining sounds near the back door. This is unusual for Charley, who seldom whines and who is usually the last dog up in the morning.

I noticed the motion-detector light on the back porch was on. Looking out my window, I caught the back end of a bear clambering over the fence not THREE FEET from my door - fortunately heading OUT of my yard, not into it. The bear was mid-sized, likely one of last year's cubs, old enough to spend time without mama but young enough not to be chased out of mama's territory until next spring.

I looked out another window to follow his progress (of course, by this time all the dogs were awake, hovering around the back door, bristling in anticipation of "something's out there!" at the same time that they needed to go out for their morning pee!).

He was joining his siblings, who had probably preceeded him just moments early - and all three of them sat down for a tasty breakfast of crabapples under the neighbour's tree less than fifty feet from my door.

Dilemma: dogs NEED out, three hungry bears with great fence climbing ability just feet away. What to do, what to do, what to do?

And then I flashed back to a time when I was about eight, tenting with my parents. A bear had wandered into our campsite. My mom picked up two saucepan lids and banged them together with all her might....and off ran the bear.

Normally, I let wild animals be - they have a right to be here too, and it is we humans who have encroached on their territory. But I knew there were plum trees and apples trees in the empty fields across the road so I wasn't about to deprive them of their only food source. I grabbed two lids, slipped out the back door, and with all the energy I could muster at 6:30 in the morning, banged away as loudly as I could and shouted at them to move.

And move they did! Fortunately, they moved away from me. Over the neighbour's crossfencing and right smack into his pond!! Now that did make me laugh, but bears can swim and have warm coats so they were in no danger. They raced across that pond, across the field, over the fence, across the road, across the next fence.....and then stood there watching me for a while before finally sauntering along the fence line in search of another tree.

Suddenly Martin, who was down by the creek in my pasture, sounded his alarm and I turned in time to see him doing a complicated dance with two more bears! I called to him, but he was in panic mode. They were not attacking him, but likely either checking for fish (I get the occasional trout swim through the creek) or having a drink. Martin, however, just sensed danger and didn't know which way to turn.

Knowing bears are more scared of me than I am of them, I raced into the pasture with pot lids banging loudly, scaring the bears away. Poor Martin was still unsure which way to move - to run after the bears up the pasture, or toward his frenzied, noisy, scary mama? Fortunately, he chose to run toward me the moment I stopped banging the lids. His nhah, nhah, nhah sounds, roughly translated into "I'm so glad you're here, mama, I was scared!" made my morning. It is the closest he has ever come to nuzzling me.

This is the third day in a row the bears have been hanging out here. Yesterday, they all but destroyed a neighbour's plum tree; the day before that, one was hanging out on the panhandle drive adjacent to my pasture - possibly getting apples from the lone apple tree along that fenceline. As long as there is plenty of fruit available, I doubt they will attempt to do harm to the piggies, but it is a worry. And lone coyote is getting far too brazen also - he no longer runs from me and is coming within a few feet of the pasture gate by the barn. And the pack of five coyotes wanders through the pasture almost daily now.

Living harmoniously with nature, respecting biological diversity, treating each sentient being with respect and dignity.....these are challenges for the human species. With winter still a couple of months away, I think I may be severely challenged for a little while yet.

Piggies, get back here!!!

After a hectic first week of the semester, it is finally the weekend. As my friend's mom used to say, " I haven't had time to sh*t or wind my watch." I got home from a work-related function and hurried about feeding animals and walking dogs before heading back out to a fund-raiser dinner for a local dog rescue, Westcoast Spay and Neuter Society.

As I let my dogs romp in the pasture, Sadie and Charley went rushing over to the shrubbery barking what I thought were shouts of greeting to the black lab, Daisy, who lives on property adjoining the northeast section of the pasture. But it wasn't Daisy my dogs were barking at. Daisy was safely in her house. Instead of Daisy's barking reply, Daisy's dad suddenly shouted to me that there was a bear just on the other side of the hedge from my dogs, on his driveway which parallels my pasture.

I hustled the dogs back to the house, and then went to put the piggies in. By this time the bear had mosied on down the driveway to the section directly alongside the pigyard, with only a wire fence and a narrow thicket of bamboo between piggies and bear.

Most of the pigs were already in the barn, having been fed before the dogs were walked, but scattered around the pig yard were four pigsters having their evening constitutional.

And do you think my sweet, obedient little piggies would come into the barn???? Not likely! Four little boys simply weren't ready for bed yet and ran straight into the bamboo, playing hide and seek with their Foster Mama.

Fortunately, I had picked up some eggplant and cucumbers from the clearance table at my favourite produce place, so I quickly popped into the barn and started scattering chunks of the veggies around the stall.

Eight piggies happily munched them right there. At the sound of happy pigs eating, the four little monkey pigs from outside came in, also. And before I could get the big barn doors closed, they grabbed large chunks of eggplant and rushed right back out to the bamboo again.

Piggies! Noooooo!!! What are you thinking???? That the bear should have veggies with his pork for dinner???????

As fast as I got one pig back in, another would slip out. Eventually, I closed the big barn doors, separating the recalcitrant four from the rest of the herd. Immediately they crowded the door, squealing and hollering (tell a piggy he can't go somewhere, and he will immediately want to go there!). Within a minute, Mama Soda came out the little piggy door in the wall of the barn, into the little pig potty yard to find out where her missing babies were.

I opened the gate from the little pig potty yard to the main pig yard, and all four boys raced into the potty yard and into the barn through the piggy door in the wall. Quickly I slammed the gate shut and locked it, all the piggies safely contained - or as safe as I can keep them.

By then, bear had lumbered back down the drive, climbed over the pasture fence, and was making his way across the back of the pasture, much to Martin's consternation. Fortunately, bear doesn't seem interested in Martin and he soon crossed the fence again and disappeared into the ravine on the neighbour's property.

Bear, you stay away from my piggies! And piggies, you come into the barn when I tell you to!

Despite a slightly late arrival at the fundraiser dinner, it was a lot of fun and a sold-out venue. And no pork with veggies.