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Mountain Man Is Home!

Thank you so much for your comments and encouragement and advice. I appreciate them so much and now it’s time to start the party because Mountain Man is home again! He arrived yesterday afternoon and wow, was he a sight for sore eyes but he was also covered in bites. He looks kind of like a pin cushion with the exception of a crater in the middle of his back. “What’s that from?” “Oh, that’s where I used my hammer to get the tick out.” “Why did you do that?” “What else would I use? Besides I wanted to flatten the sucker.”

Our evening resembled Brad Paisley’s “The Tick Song.” Mountain Man could still feel bugs crawling on him so I did a check and sure enough dozens of tiny seed ticks had taken up residence on Mountain Man. One even in his belly button. I hope that’s not too much information but I never knew the places these tiny critters could go. And, no, I didn’t use a hammer to remove them.

After that most interesting time, we went to bed. “Is the bear around?” Mountain Man asked. “I think he’s hanging around the property but I haven’t seen him in the yard again.” We started to doze off and Lilly started barking. I head to the window and sure enough, there’s the bear snuggled under a tree in our back yard.

“Mountain Man, he’s here, he’s here, he’s here.” I started shrieking. “Who’s here?” Mountain Man was in a deep sleep already. “The bear. Come and see him.” Despite the cacophony of 7 dogs barking, the bear was still resting peacefully. That black blob under the tree is our bear.

“Oh, I see him. That’s not a big bear at all.” said Mountain Man. “I know but wait until he stands up and stretches. You’ll see.” And as if the bear heard me, he rose up and walked over to the window. “Yes, that’s a big bear but I don’t think it’s a male. It’s not that big.” Gee, there’s a bear at our door and Mountain Man is telling me it’s not much of a bear. All I can say is it’s taller than the 6’3″ Mountain Man when it’s on its hind legs and twice as wide too. That’s my definition of a big bear.

We made quite the group. The bear and Mountain Man having a face off through the glass, me hiding behind Mountain Man trying to take pictures and learning the camera flash doesn’t work through glass and 7 dogs behind me barking away.

Mountain Man left to get his gun and the bear decided to curl up once again under the tree. I grabbed my noise maker and blasted that. Didn’t phase the bear at all. Mountain Man returned with his shot gun and let out three blasts into the night air and the bear went scurrying away but I could swear he was looking over his shoulder glaring at Mountain Man.

Will he be back? I don’t know. Mountain Man says the shots did the trick.

And this morning? I woke up with a bunch of ticks crawling all over me. Perhaps there is a thing as too much sharing but I’d rather share ticks with Mountain Man than be alone with the bear.