Bear at the Mailbox

Okay, gotta record this for posterity! Bob and I came home from church today (July 23, 2017) and came around the corner to our road, and I thought I saw somebody standing at our mailbox, in something long and black and furry looking. I said to Bob, who is that at our mailbox? Bob said look closer, and when I did, I saw a black bear!

When we got closer to the mailbox, the bear ran across the road and up on the bank. We stopped in the road right in front of the mailbox and Bob rolled down his window. The bear was just standing there on all fours looking at us. Bob hollered at it and it ran about halfway up a tree, just a little tree, maybe 10 in. through the middle. Anyway, it just hung there on the side of the tree, staring at us with those big bear eyes. Bob and I both were talking to it like idiots, and Bob whistled a couple of times at it. When he whistled, the bear came down off the tree and ambled up over the hill towards Lynda and Virgil Neuenschwander's place. They have gone back home to Oklahoma so nobody up there to see it.

Several people have seen bears around our house at different times through the past years. One guy saw a bear run across the road and down our road several years ago, and somebody saw one between our road and Delbert and Lorri's house a few years ago. Bob saw a big big bear out at the back of our place when he was hunting one day. Seems like everybody had seen a bear around here but me and Julie. I don't want bears to be around here, but if there is one here, I want to see it!

I thought the bear was a young one and not very big. Bob said it might have been young but it was grown and probably weighed 125-130 pounds or so. He said it also looked gaunt. We wondered if it was trying to get the ants and bugs out of our mailboxes. Surely there are more bugs and berries in the fields and woods than in our mailboxes!

I am glad I saw the bear today. I have been slightly afraid to get out in the fields and woods around our house, didn't want to pick blackberries either, because I was afraid I would encounter a bear, and with my gimpy knee and hip and weighing a ton I knew I couldn't get away from one. Which you aren't supposed to do anyway, you are supposed to stand your ground, raise your arms up and holler loudly, and back away slowly. Yeah, right, that's what I would do all right. I would probably have had a heart attack right there!

But after today and watching it run away from us, looking scared, I'm not so scared anymore. I still don't want to meet up with one, but maybe if I do, I won't have a heart attack now.....hahaha.