She Is Risen

Bear, Spring 2017, by Deb Marshall

I got home quite late Wednesday night, very close, in fact, to Thursday. On the way to put the car into the garage, I stopped first to put the bags of groceries that had been marinating in the car for hours onto the wart. Then, car garaged and after fiddling around with the odometer and mileage recordings to keep the tax man happy, and gathering up the remaining back-pack and bags of school stuff, I trudged to the wart loaded up like a pack animal to haul the grocery bags in, let the dogs out to pee, give all the critters their pills, and do a few must-be-done-before-bed chores.

The Husband hadn’t felt well and had gone to bed quite early, leaving behind a man-mess in the kitchen, so I slammed things around a bit and grumbled loudly about men who just assume someone else will take care of their messes as I put groceries away, wiped counters and stove top, cleaned the I-don’t-want-to-know-what out of the sink, and filled the bone-dry barkie boys’ water bowls. Just as I was getting started on the necessary computer chores, and I’d told one of the barkie boys he’d have to wait to go back out until I was finished, down the stairs Husband comes.

“There’s a giant bear on the kitchen wart,” he says, then stumbles back up to bed.

We have motion-detection lights that illuminate the wart, its stairs, and the path to the garage; the one over the kitchen door is always on low, and gets brighter when something’s moving about. I hurried into the kitchen to peer out the kitchen door window. Rats, forgot my glasses back by the computer; but, yup, there’s a fairly large, very black mass out there in the corner of the wart. 

Any progress I ever make towards the source of all good things – the kitchen – is inevitably made with at least one dog racing ahead of me. Fortunately, the louder, less sensible one was snoring away loudly at the far end of the house. “Abu,” I whispered to the underfoot barkie boy, “I don’t think you’re going to be able to go out again tonight. Let’s go get my glasses.”

Trek out of the kitchen to the computer; trek back to the kitchen with the glasses. Shut the kitchen lights off; shut the barkie boy up with a treat in the snoot. Peer out the window again. “Yup,” I tell the barkie boy, “you are definitely not going out again tonight. That’s either a wayward dementor out there, or a bear. And since it appears to be eating leftover bird seed, I’m guessing bear.” I flip the wart’s real light on. The black mass turns a not-quite as black face towards me, hesitates a moment, and goes back to her feast. I lock the kitchen door – just in case.

Trek back to the computer to turn it off. I’d not staying downstairs any longer than I need to, in case Bear – newly risen from her winter den and hungry enough to relish left-over bird seed – decides she’s going to test the kitchen door to see if she can get at the cat food on the counter. Nope. I’m not.

But I can’t stand it, and have to take one more look. Besides, I need snoot-treats to lure the barkie boys upstairs without a fight about a last, bedtime, pee, which is clearly not going to take place this night – they’re gonna have to hold it. Bear tolerates me watching her dine for a few minutes, then exits, not by the stairs, but through the bottom railing next to the stairs, taking out the rail and attached fairy lights, stomping all over a raised bed, and crushing its walls down in the process. 

Bears up close in the dark look like velvet shadows, very round, very silent, with pointy faces if they deign to look at you. Very, very large velvet shadows. Very, very strong velvet shadows.

Bear Feasting on Seeds from the Wart Railing, by Deb Marshall

By this time Catmandoo has arrived, and His Massiveness is way too interested in what’s happening on the other side of the door. I shoo him away from the kitchen, herd the dogs upstairs and lock them into the bedroom, then head back downstairs to hustle the Catman back to bed. I find him sitting in plain sight in the glass door in the Chapel, peering out into the full-moon yard and trying to pop the door open. Thank goodness doors have locks! I peered out, wondering if Bear has a cub or two with her, but saw nothing.

“You’d make an entirely too delicious fast-breaking feast,” I tell him, hefting him up to shoulder (20 pounds of heft) and climbing the stairs, shutting stair doors firmly behind me. “Get that critter out of your mind. You don’t need to investigate.” 

Then I take myself to bed, to wonder where Bear spends the winter, somewhere in the woods that run back of our house to out-back-naybah Eddie Bear’s house, or in his woods that run back to the road to Elkins. Is there a cave? A hollowed-out area beneath a big tree’s sheltering roots? A grubbed-out area in a hill amongst granite boulders? Inside a really big, rotten log?

How am I going to be able to put out the remaining bird seed without enticing Bear back to the wart? Will I get home some night and find I need to sleep in the car in the garage because Bear’s already on the wart? If I’d been just a bit later…or she’d been just a bit earlier…who’d be eating my groceries today?

In the morning, I discover that Bear managed to empty the one bird feeder I use without taking it down or breaking it – she left a fair amount of bear slobber all over it, however. She bent the metal pole that held the suet cage in half, removed the cage, pried it open, and made off with the remaining suet. The seeds were all gone. 

There was a red-breasted robin hopping along the newly snow-melted lawn, listening for worms. I can see the entire raised bed where the parsnips are over-wintering now, and I can actually get to it on bare ground; I’ll need to see if they can be pulled yet. I scattered more seed on the wart rails.

“Eat fast, birds,” I called. “There aren’t going to be too many more hand-outs this year. Bear has risen – the season has turned.”

The feeder’s coming in with me, tonight.

April 2017; for the blog alone.