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a not too disturbed bear
Wednesday, July 12 2023
At lunch today, I drove out to the Uptown Hannaford (aka "Ghettoford"), mostly to get things like beer and cereal. I also got some more electrical boxes, this time from Herzogs. [REDACTED]
A Facebook friend posted a photo of some chanterelles she'd just gathered, and it reminded me that this time of year is chanterelle season. But, since this friend lives in South Carolina, it was possible that the season had yet to begin this far north. In any case, this early this afternoon I grabbed a couple plastic bags and headed out the front door of the house. That's when I saw a large black object about fifty feet away directly in the direction I was headed. It took me a moment to process what the black object was. Initially the Bayesian logic in my brain assumed it was Ramona, but it was too big for that. It turned out that it was a large black bear. I made reflexively some human noise like, "Oh! Alight!" and stopped walking. The bear was not all that startled to see me, and was only slowly walking away, something he or she was doing haltingly, occasionally stopping to turn around and look at me. I'm not usually frightened by bears, but usually they don't stick around when there is a human nearby. It made me wonder if perhaps there were cubs in need of protection. I happened to have my phone with me in order to simulate a continued presence in the remote workplace, and I realized I could use it to take a picture. I got a couple, but they weren't very good. With that out of the way, I decided to take a circuitous route around the bear so he or she could continue doing whatever he or she was up to. But after I'd walked about twenty more feet, the bear decided it was time to skidaddle, and disappeared into the overgrown field of our uphill neighbor (that is, west of the Farm Road). Meanwhile, the dogs (Ramona and Neville) were asleep in the living room.
I went to the place I know chanterelles grow along the Chamomile Headwaters trail between 100 and 200 feet above the Farm Road. Initially I couldn't see any at all. But then I saw some orange peaking out beneath the leaves. It turned out that there were a fair number of chanterelles in a less-than-unfurled state, enough to nearly will one of the plastic bags I'd brought.
We'd be having guests over for dinner tomorrow, so I was on cleaning duty today. One of the things I did was to mow the lawn. A rain storm blew in while I was doing it, but I just kept mowing in the rain until I was done. As I worked, I listened to the hilarious tale of a highly conceited woman who was ripped off by a Nigerian romance scammer. Usually I have some sympathy for the victims, but not in this case.
Before Gretchen got back from the bookstore, I made a small pot of chili. This was partly so I could have chili in the chanterelle-containing tacos I wanted for dinner. I toasted some tempeh to near-perfection, which was the major non-bean/non-tomato chili ingredient, something Gretchen commented on later when she helped me eat it. We watched an episode of the Orville (one that seemed to be loosely based on the rise of Donald Trump) after watching an episode of Jeopardy!.
The bear today. You can see the Farm Road forming a line behind him or her.
My cannabis plants atop a tower near our garden.
The chanterelles I cooked this evening.
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