Into the Woods

I’ve always assumed that, at the very least, transient juvenile bears sometimes wander up the creek from the Dan River. That’s because I saw the tracks of a small bear in the mud six or seven years ago, down by the creek, about a quarter of a mile below the abbey.

Today, a neighbor with land in that area gave me photos of an adult bear that his game camera caught yesterday. The bear had raided a deer feeder. The abbey is pretty much down in a forest, in a little valley surrounded by ridges, with a creek passing through the valley. It’s not surprising that we have bears. As I said to the neighbor, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We wanted to live where the bears live.