Bear Poop, Tide Detergent, Moth Balls

Well there it was... Friday the 13th!

We had 19 degrees in the morning and it felt a bit cold. I took a walk to the creek just after sunrise to see if there was any ice formations or tiny ice crystals on the rocks and grass.

I found one spot where the splashing water caught on a plant and formed a beautiful little ice formation!

The morning light in the creek was really quite beautiful and I took my time exploring. I'm glad I did. 

I found this:

Do Bears Poop in the woods?

Of course they do!

And they do it in the middle of a creek too!

I'm pretty sure this could be the same bear I saw while picking berries this summer. Generally the bears move on from our area to look for a mate. 

Black Bears are seen around here once in a while but generally it is a rare sighting, unless the population up north forces more bears south.

Anyway. The bear has stopped here more than once. There were a few piles on these rocks...well unless another bear decided to use this spot a toilet too? The under layer which is older is corn, the top layer is apples. There was another pile, but I didn't think you needed to see that.

Interesting! I thought it was a pretty cool find. 

I woke up early with a start in the middle of the night and for some odd reason I thought of Moth Balls. 

I'd used Moth Balls to deter the Ground Hogs from infesting my shed last year. They were making nests under a pile of old lumber. I had tossed Moth Balls under the lumber and dumped ammonia on top of the lumber and around their holes. They abandoned my shed within a few days. 

It smelled awful too, so I opened the doors and turned the exhaust fan on to keep it from being overwhelming.

So what about Moth Balls? 

It is a perfect critter deterrent. I use a few moth balls around the engine of the riding lawnmower's engine to keep the mice from chewing on the wires. 

How would Moth Balls work on deer? 

Rich said scented detergent would repel deer too. 

So being sly, and not wanting to deal with the guy who wants to shoot deer as they come up the trail out of my woods and towards where he parked his stand..........

I took some Tide Soap powder and spread it on the logs in the 'shoot' zone. Since we had a skiff of snow, it looks exactly like snow!

I added Moth Balls to the area, placing them here and there. I didn't need many and the smell was nasty. 

I had some old Tide detergent I'd purchased by mistake. Someone told me to use the powder in my machine. One, it doesn't work well, and two, I bought scented Tide. We don't use any scented soaps or softners at all. 

I can smell someone who uses scented laundry soap 20 to 30 feet away now. 

Being the Good Neighbor, I will call my 3 neighbors and let them know that the Bear is still hanging around.

I doubt he/she is a big concern. But I can't wait for some snow to hit the ground so I can do some tracking. I think I enjoy working out the stories that tracks of animals leave in the snow.

I would love to 'hunt' with my camera and get this fella in a nice shot I could frame.

It's Bear-y Time!

Oh wait!

Hot. July.

Berry Briers.

Sweat.

Pokey things.

When I was a little kid and I probably wrote about this before...my mom and Grandma Pearl would get us up on a god awful hot humid and sticky morning.

We'd walk or mom would drive us in the 1965 station wagon to some deep dark woods.

We'd get sprayed with OFF and have to wear long pants, long sleeve shirts, and bandanas over our heads to ward off the horrid deer flies and skeeters...to

pick 

blackcaps.

I think my brother detested these excursions.

I don't know if I disliked them as much as he did. We were given pint paint cans with twine string to use as straps across our shoulders so we could pick with both hands.

We were expected to fill our pints before it got too hot.

I think we worked mostly in silence except for the buzzing of monstrous mosquitoes and deer flies.

At some point in time on one of these trips, I recall having to leave before we filled our pints. Grandma tapped me on the shoulder and pointed.

There was a bear not far off looking at us. Grandma just had us turn slowly and walk away.

At the time I thought it was a pretty cool thing. I'm not sure Grandma did.

So fast forward to 2020. 

There is a patch on my neighbor's land that used to have yellow raspberries, or as my Grandfather called them Golden Raspberries.

Rich and I found them in 2008 and filled a 5 gallon bucket with them. We filled another bucket with blackcaps that year. Back then we could actually drive his truck into the area and pick to our delight.

We came back a third day to pick and found the area decimated. It looked as though a tornado had gone through the patches.

Later on we found out that a wandering bear had come through.

Well I went on Saturday afternoon. To tell you the truth, I like just wandering around the forest and picking berries, or searching for morels. It sort of gives me a purpose to gather food while aimlessly wandering.

So I set out to seek out the yellow raspberries. I hadn't been there in quite a few years so I was curious to see if they were still around. I picked my way down our ridge road and then crossed the fence to the neighbor's untended land.

It was hot  and I knew that I'd be walking through tall grasses so I left Charlie at home. I was really surprise at the amount of wild parsnip that had overgrown the old pastures. Enough so that I had to walk carefully while following a faint trail. I kept thinking to myself ... make yourself tiny!

I was delighted to find my effort rewarded me with some nice patches of blackcaps. I picked and dropped the berries into the ice cream pail with a hole cut in the lid. I had an old leash attached to the handle of the bucket to toss over my shoulders. Not much had changed since I was a little kid. Though instead of going before dawn, I was going midday.

There's a spot where an old oak used to stand over the pasture. It has since crumbled and fallen yet it is like an island of shade. I followed the trails around the edge of it, stepping into the shade to cool off once in a while.

I thought to myself that if I were a kid, this would be the spot that I'd make a fort!

Then I found the spot. After many years, it was overgrown but still there!

I was delighted!

I put my stick down and started to pick.

I heard the UTV's revving up in the valley below and thought to myself that they were loud enough to wake the dead. 

While picking, I'm always aware of my surroundings. Well, I try to be. I looked up as I stepped back out of the bramble.

What?

A black fuzzy pony? No. Wait.

A calf?

No, no cattle in this area any more.

Wait. That.

A black bear Butt!

It trotted off.

At first I thought I had been seeing things. So I followed the trail looking for tracks. I found bear scat.

Hello Bear!

I decided I'd probably picked enough and headed in the opposite direction.

I found more bear scat. I found a patch where the bear had been picking berries too.

Well then.

The Bear could have his patch. 

I walked back [making myself thin as a rail] through the parsnip and golden rod to the snowmobile trail and headed home.

Maybe I'll stick to our woods with the company of the Brat Pack.

Finding Chance...The Amazing Rescue.

He was spotted when the Kenosha gang and I walked through the creek with the dogs.

Four pairs of eyes can sometimes be so much better than just one set.

Suddenly I heard a shout.

"Found HIM!"

I turned around and there he was. He hadn't been swept that far down stream, perhaps nearly a quarter of a mile, but there he was tangled in roots and debris.

He was snugged in tight between some roots.

As you can see, just one portion of him remained white. He was put in a backpack and we headed further downstream to where the chair was embedded in the dirt under a huge log.

That chair it was decided quickly, would have to wait until another flood let it loose. We continued the walk using sticks to poke around at other debris piles.
No Creepy Doll.
Well, I didn't feel a loss as she wasn't cute like the bears.
We made it to the snow mobile crossing which was now an open pit of water.

I wanted to come back and take a shot of this wide open place where the flood waters must have swirled in circles cutting a wide pond into this space before moving on.
[Method used, 3 exposures...no filters. I'm sort of enjoying that method and still experimenting]

We hiked back towards 'the beach'.

The Teddy Bear Reunion was something to behold.

Percy hugged him tight and I thought I heard a whisper.

"I'm so glad you are back Chance. That sure was a rough ride..."

Maybe it was the wind, maybe it was the water flowing softly over the rocks. Maybe I imagined it.