Bearly for the birds

© harrington

Thanks for stopping by on what is locally a cool and cloudy Memorial Day. I have a bear visit (3 AM) and sighting (5 AM while walking Si-Si) to report. The responsible members of this household had, no doubt, brought in the bird feeders from the deck railing. A not-so-responsible, Labrador-loving, blog-writing, head-of-household(?) was lazy and left the front yard feeder up and partially filled. That was enough to cause some interrupted sleep when bruin visited. We'll see which of the things hanging with the feeder are salvageable later this morning. Much as the writer would like to, he doubts he would have any success with an attempt to blame the visit on all the new flowers that were planted yesterday around the front yard feeder. (You know, the bear smelled the flowers and came to investigate and that's when the feeder was discovered. Kind of like the dog ate my homework.) Anyway, as the writer and Si-Si were headed north on the gravel road early this morning, toward the pond, a bundle of black hustled across the road from the neighbor's property headed for the general vicinity of that self-same pond. Did you know that,

"a bear in a hurry tends to scamper and scurry?"

You do now. It looked very much like the same kind of tucked under butt that 2 of the dogs that live here show when they're in a big, big hurry. Si-Si, perpetually sniffing for anything good to eat, never noticed the bear crossing the road to get to the other side. So the good news is, this year keeping the feeders up through Spring (but remembering, for the most part to bring them in at night) brought visits from indigo buntings, scarlet tanagers and Baltimore orioles. The bad news is there's usually some clown in the crew who forgets to bring in one of the feeders and now the trash will have to be moved back into the garage and the feeders brought in for a long time since Barry (or Betty) Bruin will now come back to check for a free lunch, probably until the berries ripen. All in all a memorable Memorial Day. Don't forget those who made this day possible, and necessary.

Before you leave, if you care about the fracking issue, you should check Bluestem Prairie's recent coverage of the Wisconsin study. I've been involved in economic development off and on for years and I've known realistic multipliers. The ones being quoted are higher than any I was willing to accept. Stop back when you can. Rants, raves and reflections served daily in My Minnesota.