Bear with me

 

Maurice the Black Bear emerges from my forest, April 30, 2025.

Leaving Texas and my wife, I arrived back at my home on The Pilchuck at the end of April. There are plenty of things to do and many things to enjoy. 

As we in Washington emerge from winter, the days lengthen and the grasses, vines and trees flourish in a solid verdant panorama in spring's new and bright shades of green. Some of the flourishing greenery comes with prickly thorns and an evil desire to overrun and rule the place, namely, the Himalayan Blackberries.

To keep my homestead carved out from the surrounding forest requires that I report for duty by mid-spring to battle the aggressive sticker berries. I have an effective (and expensive) herbicide cocktail that I mix in 3 gallon batches and fill my backpack-mounted spraying rig to kill those nascent noxious nasties trying to encircle my dwelling.

I was in my battle gear on a bright and warm day at the end of April, smiting those thorns that had grown close to house for starters. I had dispensed my first 3 gallons of lethality and paused on my south deck for a glass of lemonade and a self-congratulatory 'at-a-boy'. I paused to take in the delightful sight of the apple orchard below me in bloom. I wondered when the black bears would turn up to help themselves to my apples, figuring that if the past is the key to the present, I should expect Maurice to come and shake my tree in July.

Turning my head to look down my driveway, and speak of the devil, there was Maurice coming out of my forest from the back-forty!

Maurice walks back down my driveway and takes the Y into the Back-Forty.

Too early for apples of berries, a black bear neighbor browses my offerings on The Pilchuck.

In my day's plan, my next sticker patch to attack was to be those growing around my meter box on the power pole halfway down my gravel driveway. Timing is everything. I would have met Maurice right at the edge of the forest if I'd been a bit more ambitious and loaded up my second sortie of sticker-killer, rather than pausing on my porch.

Yielding to priority and possession, I lingered a bit longer before I walked with my equipment to the Y to do my flora maintenance, calling out all the while in a loud voice, "Good day Maurice! I'm a comin' your direction. Just to let you know. No surprises. Come back in July and I'll have some apples for you and maybe have the place spruced up a bit by then. Maurice, you'll have to bear with me on this... we can share the place, but it's my turn to be at the Y. So, please bear with me."

Blackberries and black bears - What a wild place to inhabit here on The Pilchuck.