We have been having a pretty big adventure here at my house. My neighbor took this picture, but I didn’t know about it until after the bear was at my house. This bear is standing on the driveway leading to my house. She named this bear Cinnamon Buns. At first I was telling people that I had a brown bear at my house and they looked at me rather strangely. Of course a brown bear is also know as a Grizzly Bear, and we don’t have those where I live. What I didn’t know is that Black Bears come in many colors, and one of them is cinnamon brown. When the sun was on his back you could definitely see the cinnamon color.
A few days after the driveway picture was taken, I had just come out of the shower and was heading for my closet. I looked out my bedroom window and saw a bear climbing up onto the picnic table in my backyard. I really didn’t think I was really seeing a bear! How could that be? He laid down and started licking his paws. Then started getting down.
A few days later I saw this. Cinnamon Buns was up in the tree eating the apricots that hadn’t fallen yet. Not only did he sit in the tree eating apricots, he also stood up and shook the branches to make the apricots fall. From where I was watching I could have literally reached out and touched him if I had opened the window. I confess I really wanted to touch him and see what that fur felt like, but caution prevailed and I didn’t do it.
Cinnamon Buns was exploring my yard and eating all the apricots that were on the ground around the trees. There were probably close to 1000 apricots on the ground. That’s a lot. I probably got 2-3 gallons of them picked before the bear showed up. I have 3 apricot trees and he cleaned them all out. We always thought it was the birds that were eating the apricots before I was able to pick them. Now we are not so sure about that.
He seems to be a very curious bear. It was fun to watch him checking out the garden. He was a good boy and didn’t eat any of my tomatoes or herbs.
My dog Seamus was outside on Thursday when Cinnamon Buns came to the house and scared the bear and made it run up a tree. It was difficult to get Seamus to come back in the house. Silly me, I went outside to get the dog! Just a few steps….. but when I got back into the house I couldn’t believe I had done that. The bear stayed up in the pine tree for a long time and was panting from the quick climb up the tree. This picture shows Cinnamon Buns walking on my garden wall back toward the apricot tree.
I haven’t seen him since then. All of the apricots are gone from the trees and the ground. While it is better for all involved – the bear, my dogs, and me – I really miss him. I bet he will be back next year.
