April 28, 2006

A happy grey day, a bird, a bear

Now, finally, it looks like Springtime in the Rockies. Fat flakes of snow are falling, which started just after I came back from talking to some of the neighbors about a well-use rotation schedule for summer. I have never been happier to see snow.

Our rental house and three other houses share one inadequate well, which means that I suspect we will be having water delivered for the tenants (drained from a tanker truck into their cistern) before the summer is much further along.

The ornithology lab at Cornell University released news of a hybrid chickadee found in British Columbia. Apparently a similar black-capped/mountain chickadee was seen in Colorado ten years ago. Both species are common year-around residents here.

No bear stories here yet, but a man was swatted last Wednesday by a black bear two counties south of here, reports the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

Harold Cerda, 29, was working on a private ranch near Stonewall (a rural area about 25 miles west of Trinidad) when he stopped to use an outhouse.

While he was in the outhouse, a bear climbed in the open windows of his car. Cerda’s lunch was on the front seat.

The bear ate Cerda’s lunch while he was in the outhouse. When he came out, the bear was walking in that direction and took a swing at him, hitting him and knocking him down.

After hitting Cerda, the bear ran about 100 feet up a hill and Cerda started walking toward his car, which was about 30 feet away. Just then, the bear came back. Cerda ran to his car and started the engine to roll up the electric windows. “All four windows were down and they go up real slow,” said Cerda. “I got them closed just in time.”


M. hates the electric windows on the Jeep Liberty. In a situation like this, being able to put up all four simultaneously is a plus, but first you would need to turn on the ignition, which takes additional precious seconds.

1 comment:

Reid Farmer said...

Great bear story. Connie and I own 36 acres near Weston, up in that neck of the woods.