No, not the bear; the frog. I just went out to turn on the pool pump and the stupid frog is sitting on the solar blanket. AGAIN. Looks like the same frog to me. At least it has the exact same coloring. Hey buddy, do ya think this is your pool? scram, find a puddle somewhere! I think I’ll just leave him there and see what happens. Obviously “rescuing” him is not necessary. Is it just coincidence that he found his way back? Maybe he finds the chlorine to be cleansing after all that muddy pond water. Or, maybe it’s because we haven’t had much rain lately and he is looking for any water he can find. Don’t know.

We did have a chorus of frogs last night when we took a nighttime dip in the pool. At the time I thought they were lovely. Now I’m not so sure…Rick, how about some grenouille [frogs’ legs for the French-impaired] for dinner tonight?

Last night I alluded to something out of the ordinary happening yesterday. I was held captive in my house for about one hour! No, not by terrorists and not by the Mafia that you all seem to think we live amongst: by BEARS. Yep, by one big momma bear and her three cubs! You probably already guessed something like that from this blog entry title. Okay, okay, it was my own fault for still feeding the birds. But I never thought they would come over the fence into my back yard!! Yet that is exactly what they did.

I first saw them from the office window while I was on the phone chatting with my Mom. I saw the big one first strolling across the front yard, then two cubs came into view, then a third! Here was the momma bear with triplets that we had heard about! I had not fed the birds in front yesterday morning, so at least they didn’t find any food there. Poor Mom, I think I yelled pretty loud in her ear, there’s the bear again in the yard, oh $#%#, she’s got babies with her!! I told her I had to call her back and sprinted for my camera. Taking photos through the screen was not the best, so I thought I could sneak outside in back and maybe shoot over the fence. [Come on, give me a break. Shoot with my CAMERA, nothing else. Sheesh!] At this point the cubs were gamboling around in our driveway. Here is how they looked when I first saw them in front. Don’t pay any attention to the ugly red flags. They just mark our cable for the TV [which of course they were supposed to do this week but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of them]. See the third cub peeking over the bird bath looking straight at us?

I went out on the back deck to catch a quick glimpse of where they were before I headed down into the yard. Wait just a minute…looks like she’s walking along the fence in the woods, noooooooo, she’s on THIS SIDE OF THE FENCE and she’s headed straight for the stupid bird feeder! ACKKKKKKK, I can’t believe she’s in our back yard!! Good thing the dogs were all inside.  I yelled at her, banged on the deck railing, and she could have cared less. Just went about her business as if to say, yadayadayada, come down here lady and just try and stop me! Here is a quick photo story.

Hmm..a bird feeder. My nose told me it was here! Doesn’t look too hard,  think I can make quick work of this.

dum de dum, first I have to stand up and a get a good grip on it…maybe pull this pole over a bit…bend this hanger thing down…

Yup, that worked. Piece of cake! Squirrel-proof? Maybe. Bear-proof, no way!

[Please note the position of the iron hook that the bird feeder is hanging on before and after these two shots.]
Yummy seed! It even had bits of fruit in it. Maybe I should bring the kids over here. I told them to stay back until I found out if it was safe or not. Besides, I’ve made a fine pig of myself, might as well share.
C’mon cubbies! Free eats!
Mom, are you sure this is okay, this stealing thing?
Sure it’s okay ya big sissy! See how much fun we’re having?
Maybe so, but I think I’ll just sit here and look cute and sweet!

They sure were cute but I really didn’t want them in my yard. Momma was sleek and shiny. Glossy, like she’d just been groomed at a salon. It was obvious she was still nursing the cubs. They just stayed, and played, and stayed. I think momma was taking a siesta under the trees because after a bit the cubs were standing up on their hind legs and wrestling with each other at the edge of the woods and she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I watched them for awhile and then went to read my book. I gave them a good long while and went out on the deck to take a look after about 45 minutes. I didn’t see any black humps out there where they had most recently been. I went back inside to get something to make noise with and ended up grabbing the two metal tops to our still existing pool poles. I thought clanging them together would make a loud enough noise to let them know I was coming. Off I went, clanging and talking in a loud tone of voice, clang clang, where are you momma? clang clang, have you left yet momma? clang clang, pretty cute babies ya got there! I didn’t see any sign of them. WHEW!

I went back to the house, taking the ruined and mangled squirrel-proof-but-not-bear-proof feeder with me. I placed it on the floor for the dogs to inspect. EWWWWW mom,we don’t want to go near it, it smells scary. Bunch of weenies. I let them out and Daisy made a very wide berth around it on her way out. They beat a quick path right to the scene of the crime, the feeder pole, and spent a long time inspecting the ground all around it. Alex even looked up into one of the trees that a cub had been climbing.

Meanwhile I decided I needed some relaxation so I reeled off the pool cover and [after rescuing the frog from the skimmer] went for my swim, finally.

Just for the record, I won’t be feeding the birds anymore—ANYWHERE. As I did my laps in the pool I repeated my new mantra while doing my best to click my heels together [ à la Dorothy ]; I won’t feed the birds, I won’t feed the birds, I won’t feed the birds.

[P.S. Check back for a link to a slideshow of the bears that Rick is putting together. All in all I took 97 photos! We won’t bore you with all of them, but it will be cute set to music and full screen.]

The frog is fine in case you were worried. My swim was delayed by an unforseen set of circumstances. I did not, however, get to my swim until after I fed the dog’s, around 4:00 p.m. Let me just say it was an “interesting” day and I never left the house or yard. More on that exact story later, but I will tell you I couldn’t swim because someone else was using our yard as a picnic ground.

Anyway, when I finally felt it was safe for the dogs and myself to venture back out into the yard again, I reeled back the solar blanket expecting to find my froggie friend somewhere. He was nowhere to be seen. I skimmed the assorted bugs off that had collected since the last time and wondered if he had managed to get out. Then I remembered to check the two automatic skimmers at either end of the pool where assorted things usually get caught when the pump is running. Nope, nothing in that one except a lizard and he’s not with us anymore, plus some dog hair. I open the cover to the other skimmer and something jumps up at me. Well, hello Mr. Frog, glad to see you made it after all! Now the trick is to lift the skimmer out without him jumping all over me. I am not particularly squeamish about bugs, etc, but I don’t really want them on me either. Finally I manage to get him out [without any physical contact I might add] and steered him in the direction of the woods instead of back into the pool which is exactly where he wanted to head. Frog rescue at your service!

Let me just say I am not going to attempt this. I’m sure it wouldn’t be anything at all like Dancing with Wolves. But unless I can capture the frog that has decided our pool is his home today, I won’t be going in for that swim. In my bathrobe this morning, I went down to turn on the pool pump. I saw something that looked strange on top of the solar blanket so I went to check it out. To my surprise it was a frog. Hailey came over to see what I was talking to out there by myself and the frog jumped away. WOW, cool, Hailey thought. I could just see her jumping in to chase it. Daisy came over to see what was going on. Both dogs were going crazy watching this leap-frog activity taking place on the solar blanket. FInally he found the edge of the blanket and KERPLUNK! into the water he went. Ah, poor froggie, I thought as he sunk to the bottom. Things didn’t look too good for him. I went to get my skimmer to fish him out, but when I returned I couldn’t find him anywhere close to where he had gone in. At this point I didn’t want to take the blanket off and figured he was a goner and that I’d skim him out later on when I went for my swim.

A little later I went back outside and there he was sitting on top of the blanket again, in just about the same spot I had found him earlier in the day. So, he wasn’t dead as I had feared; au contraire, he was alive and kicking. I got the skimmer and just as I was about to reach him, KERPLUNK! back into the water he went again. Okay, obviously you like it in there and are in no hurry to get out. Next time, I told him, I’m bringing the camera out. Sure enough, after about a half an hour I went back out there and there he sat. I took a few pics and once again picked up the skimmer. He must have seen the shadow as we went through the whole routine again. KERPLUNK! This time I peeled back the blanket and could see him treading water about two feet down. I tried to get him in the skimmer, but he swam away. This went on for about 15 minutes and he looked like he was getting tired. Hey, buddy, what about me up here? Think I’m not getting tired of your antics? You betcha I am! Come ‘ere you little green monster! I gave up. I guess I’ll just have to wait until I go for a swim to take the cover off and hopefully be able to catch him then without too much “here-we-go-round-the-pool-yet-again” stuff.

What a thrill! Our first firefly sighting tonight! I was just thinking a few nights ago that our move here could be deemed perfect if we only had fireflies. I really don’t remember them as a child growing up in the East, or at least they never registered with me. Maybe I took them for granted. Rick and I encountered fireflies when we brought our dog, Indy, back East for some dog shows in Ohio in the mid 90s. We had stopped at a rest stop at night and were completely mesmerized and enchanted by their blinking lights. Since then I have always wanted to live in an area where they have these creatures of wonder. Tonight when Rick got home we sat out on our back deck having a glass of wine. It was about 9:00 p.m. Rick suddenly said, look a firefly! I didn’t believe him, but as I looked up, there it was flashing in amongst the tree tops. So bright! It made my day for sure! As we watched we saw several more sending out their own unique form of Morse code. For me, the message was clear. Welcome.
[Ed. note. Did you know that fireflies are not seen west of a line about mid-Kansas? No one seems to know why.]