So... there are bears in the area of WI that we have our cottage. I wasn't surprised exactly, in fact there were bears in Pepin county several hours south where I used to have my farm. But since I never walked around much in the woods down there and we and our neighbors never had any bear sitings I didn't worry about it much.
We met more neighbors while at the cottage this past weekend. They showed us over their lovely house with 2nd story deck, no staircase to ground. She warned me to bring in all bird feeders overnight if I had them. They had a bear up on their deck one night munching at the feeder. 'especially this time of the year in the Spring when they are really hungry'. She said a lot of people bear hunted in the area. She also shared all kinds of great information about local snow mobile trails that are great for xcountry skiing in winter and walking in the warmer months. She told me about a loop, that is called the Hanson loop right off of our road that people used for walking. She gave us a lot of great information.
I don't have bird feeders so I mentally noted the information about the bears and forgot about it. Then Cervyn and I went out for a walk trying to find the loop. I think we did find it. We found a path that led us back through the woods. The trees up there are just starting to bud, it was super quiet and pretty and suddenly I thought 'what if we met a bear back here?'. Realizing there wasn't a whole lot that I could do, and that calling 911 in this case was useless I picked up the pace and tried to enjoy my walk. Surely the neighbor wouldn't be so enthusiastic about hiking if there were tons of bear encounters. I tried to observe Cervyn, she may be deaf, but her nose is certainly sharper than mine and I tried not to think about a bear being downwind of us. I realized it's harder to not think about bears when you are in the woods.
We met more neighbors while at the cottage this past weekend. They showed us over their lovely house with 2nd story deck, no staircase to ground. She warned me to bring in all bird feeders overnight if I had them. They had a bear up on their deck one night munching at the feeder. 'especially this time of the year in the Spring when they are really hungry'. She said a lot of people bear hunted in the area. She also shared all kinds of great information about local snow mobile trails that are great for xcountry skiing in winter and walking in the warmer months. She told me about a loop, that is called the Hanson loop right off of our road that people used for walking. She gave us a lot of great information.
I don't have bird feeders so I mentally noted the information about the bears and forgot about it. Then Cervyn and I went out for a walk trying to find the loop. I think we did find it. We found a path that led us back through the woods. The trees up there are just starting to bud, it was super quiet and pretty and suddenly I thought 'what if we met a bear back here?'. Realizing there wasn't a whole lot that I could do, and that calling 911 in this case was useless I picked up the pace and tried to enjoy my walk. Surely the neighbor wouldn't be so enthusiastic about hiking if there were tons of bear encounters. I tried to observe Cervyn, she may be deaf, but her nose is certainly sharper than mine and I tried not to think about a bear being downwind of us. I realized it's harder to not think about bears when you are in the woods.
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