The Bear Facts

The  exquisite wild flowers around here remind me the world is my garden.


 I am just a child of the planet, belonging nowhere, loving everywhere. 



Harley dog and I survived our 5am to 8pm shift at the hunters check station yesterday. Today we worked 5am to 1pm. Now we are done for the week.  The hunters are super nice. I give them all a big smile.  Nobody has yelled.  Most folks are unfailingly polite. Of course, it's like the wild wild west with everyone armed to the teeth with assorted weapons and ammunition. One certainly hopes everyone is in a good mood, given those odds. 


Harley dog is also having to get used to the  long hours. I can't take him on a long walk during my shift, just short loops around the area. When we work, he is a on long tether, because he has zero road sense about the dangers of vehicles. Lately he has busied himself with mole patrol when he's not sniffing over the latest kill.  The guy that trained us weeks ago when we first arrived,  happened to stop by for a few minutes, giving Harley tons of attention as the CEO (Canine Enthusiasm Officer).


The 10% precipitation forecast for yesterday turned into 100% flash flood conditions.  Because it's a holiday week, many hunters had arrived early with guests such as children, wives, in-laws and grandchildren. They drove into the 38,000 acres of wild adventure,  nice and dry, all happy for the thrill of the hunt returning hours later soaking wet, muddy and cold, ready to brave an exciting night in the sodden campground. The little permission cards they pick up in the morning, then  fill out and return at the end of the day came back wet, blotched, smeared, ripped, folded, torn and some were simply MIA.


I had to string up a clothes line in the office shack  to dry out the paperwork to do my reports. What a hoot. It reminds me of the many beach bars in the Caribbean that have little clothes lines with wooden clothes pins attached behind the bar. You often see assorted money hanging there to dry out,  that comes their way from boaters and swimmers. 

When things got slow today, for some fool reason, I decided to clean and organize the shack. I started in one tiny corner. After moving  100+ pounds of paperwork, brochures, wildlife magazines, rubber stamps, pens, pencils, cameras, forms,  flashlights, batteries, 2 pairs of dusty eyeglasses, 5 coffee cups, paper towels, ant poision, bleach, hand sanitzer, mosquito spray, gloves, rubber bands, staplers, mystery keys, paint brushes, padlocks, chains, chokers, business cards, and a cloudy magnifying glass, you will never guess WHAT I found next. 


A desk living under all that. 


Like a true excavator,  I swept off several pounds of dirt, then washed it three times trying to get most of the grime off.  I found a pile of pictures from previous hunts and a stapler, so while the desk was drying, I started a montage on the wooden  open door,  until I ran out of staples. By then the desk was dry and fairly clean. Whew.  I transferred the mountain of supplies, back to the desk, only this time, a good bit of it went to live in the drawers I discovered hiding beneath.  What a treasure hunt-and-stash this turned out to be. 


Another workamper stopped by to see how I was doing. He poked his head in the shack with a surprised "What?  There's a desk in here?"   We had a good laugh over that. 


Harley alerted me there were cows and calves roaming around, so I took him for a closer look, but they wandered off deep into the brush. I don't know when hunting season starts for cows.  Two people reported seeing a bear climbing a tree, I had no idea bears lived here. A wildlife biologist stopped by so I mentioned the bear. She said they are just passing through, as it's not a very good bear habitat and there is no bear hunting season here.  So that's the bear facts for you.   

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