Evidence

There are often exciting wildlife adventures that take place here on the farm.
Between the deer, the bald eagles, the foxes and the countless rabbits, the birds in the chimney there is never a dull moment.

But, I think my favorite was last fall, when Marge and I encountered* a bear.
*I use the word encountered in the broadest possible sense. "saw" would probably be more accurate

Marge and I were going for our routine evening walk, and I was talking with my mom on the phone.

It had already been an adventurous walk - Marge had caught a sniff of something and gone absolutely crazy! She ran circles around me such that the leash got tangled; I dropped the phone, and it took quite some time to grab the dog who was still going crazy; Marge snapped at me with her teeth, so I smacked her jaw, which, much to my shock and horror, set off a small fountain of blood.
So now my mom thinks I've been kidnapped cause the phone is still on the ground and she keeps saying "are you there? hello? are you there?" And I think that I have murdered, or at least severely abused, my puppy. It was a rather distressing moment.

But, it turns out Marge was just loosing her baby teeth - and my firm, but not abusive smack, had knocked a loose one out. So, lots of blood, but not an equivalent amount of pain. I picked up the phone, and continued talking to mom as we headed back to the house to get cleaned up.

Before we got there, and not 2 minutes after the first incident, I looked out across the field (we'll say about 100 yards away), and saw a very large black creature.

My first thought: "A cow?"
No, legs are too fat, and its not walking like a cow.

Second thought: "Really big beaver?"
No, definitely not. Unless it is Mr. Beaver himself from the original Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe movie. So no.

Third Thought: "A bear"
yup. that's what it was. no denying it in my mind.

Then I did one of the most thoughtless things I have ever done in the entire history of my relationship with my mother.

"Mom" I said, "I need to hang up, I see a bear, and I need to pick up my puppy and get back to my house now"
"What! No, don't hang up, stay on the phone" Mom said in the greatest distress.
"No, I am hanging up, cause I need both hands so that I can pick up my dog." Click.

Yeah, that's the kind of speech that will give caring mothers every where a heart attack. Why didn't I say something like "Oh, Mom, someone is calling on the other line, let me call you right back". That is the kind of innocent lie you tell in such situations in order to save you mother's heart from unnecessary stress. I was not that considerate.

I hung up. Grabbed my dog (whose mouth was still bleeding a bit), and hurried frantically (no I didn't run, I know your not supposed to) back to my little house. The bear, I believe, never noticed us, and just ambled across the open field and into some corn.

I walked into the house with puppy in my arms, blood on my hands, and a look of mild terror on my face.

Mon Amour was on the phone with someone else, and was unphased. Nice.

Mom believed me when I said it was a bear. I think the friends I told were skeptical. (Bears don't actually live in my area of the country). Mon Amour definitely didn't believe me. He liked the escaped cow theory.

But, then the local news reports started. Bear sightings here and there throughout the county. The first sighting was like a day after I saw the bear. I like to think that its first appearance in this area was on our farm.

It's last appearance, very recently, was actually in the town where we used to live, about 25 miles south of here. Experts kind of hoped the bear would wander back up north where it came from, but it didn't, and when it wandered into a very urban area they had to capture it.

They are shipping him off to a more bear-friendly part of the state.
I can't say that I will miss him. But I am glad that they found him, cause otherwise no one would ever have believed that I saw a bear in this county.