"Bear"ly Made it!!

The Bible tells us we are to give thanks in everything. I had really been trying to find a reason to be thankful for my sprained ankle. Well, The Lord has shown me some really good reasons to be thankful!!!

Let's start with some background. Last year, we had a "bear" of a year (pun intended)! It started with me walking on our road, alone. I had a car come up beside me and the people inside said they saw me walking alone and wanted to warn me that they had just seen a bear where I had just been walking. At which point, I decided two miles was enough for the day! Then we had a bear run out in front of us on the highway in northern California, hitting our van around 2:40 a.m. Later on in the trip, we had a black bear cross our path while we were driving, in brood daylight. This time it was far enough away, we were in no danger of hitting it. When we got back, we found we had a couple of bears hanging out in our neighborhood. Our neighbors had seen them in their yards early in the mornings. My husband found a rather large pile left from a bear just outside of his study door, and on a Wednesday night, we pulled up in our driveway after Bible study and saw a bear run into the woods behind our house. Now, you may be thinking, well you live in the country...expect it! And we do. We live on propery that backs up to the Bremerton City watershed, where it is said that the highest population of cougars in the whole state is located. It also has a large number of bears and bobcats. We use caution and now we have a dog.

Monday, Samuel was outside and spotted a bobcat down the road by the entrance to the watershed property. He said it paused, looked down the road to where Sam was, and ran off into the woods. Yesterday, we found out that Monday evening, while we were out, our neighbor had a most exciting thing happen. He was in his garden when he heard something in the bushes (not sure if it was the bushes that are between our property and theirs). He went on up to his house and got his 357 and went back down to his garden. A bear then rushed at him, stopping about five feet in front of him and got up on it's hind legs. He shot the bear in the chest and killed it. The game guys came and took the carcass away. Now, if it were Craig, he would have insisted on making a rug out of it!! ;-)

Now, I say, I am SOOOOOOOO thankful I have a sprained ankle! I am not out on our road by myself with the cougars and bobcats and bears....oh my! Maybe I should get a holster to carry a gun.......or maybe I should just get a treadmill!!

6 comments:

  1. Wow! We went for a drive last night so Chris could show us where he's been riding his bike (he works out in the country/backwoods) lately with some of his work buddies. Just as we were getting to the end - a black bear scampered across the road in front of us! I'm so thankful that we saw it while we were in the car, rather than Chris being on his bike! The guys are all thinking a lot more about taking precautions and keeping an eye out for wildlife.

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  2. I am glad you have found a reason to be thankful for your sprained ankle....I am still working on being thankful for mine,(I was just starting to walk a mile everyday ) I am almost there =)God is good!! I vote for both....a holster and a treadmill! Treadmill for most of the year and Winston and a pistol, for the few sunny warm days we get, so you can enjoy walking outside!! Love you!!

    ~Sheri

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  3. Yikes, Cara! Hopefully Chris has a way to protect himself!!! That is scary, thankfully, they usually don't want to be around us!!!!

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  4. Emily! I have one in my back yard too! I have been totally stressing about it for the kids sake! I haven't seen it but I hear it every day and night. It lets us know he is there!!! Good thing your neighbor is a good shot!!

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  5. Just a holster? lol j/k.
    If you do get one, you might consider a S&W "Ladysmith".
    Shoots either .38 special or .357 magnum.
    Fairly lightweight and compact.
    We took one bear hunting as a backup to our rifles.
    It's a pretty accurate and powerful little gun.

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  6. I would most definitely recommend the treadmill. April M and I had a "bear experience" in Banner Forest that I will never forget. We were on our last mile out of 12 and a runner came by, telling us that she had just seen a bear in the direction we were headed (between us and our car). That was just the motivation we needed to pick up our pace and get to the car as quickly as we could, while singing songs at the top of our lungs to scare that bear away!!

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