A couple years ago the hubs and girls and I were driving down the mountain – a back road with hairpin turns and you can’t go very fast – when my youngest daughter said, “Hey! I just saw a bear. Or a cat. It might have been a cat, but it looked like a bear.”
We weren’t going anywhere important and we weren’t going that fast, the road was deserted and so my husband stops and backs up.
As we’re backing up my daughter says, “Maybe it was a dog. Actually, yeah, I think it was a dog.”
At this point, I’m thinking to myself, she saw a wet rock.
So, we’re kind of laughing, thinking we’re going to see a interesting rock or possibly a house cat on the side of the mountain, or maybe a lost dog, but when we get back to the culvert where she saw it, sure enough, not five feet off the road was a mama bear with two little cubs.
Of course my husband winds his window down and hangs out of it with my phone. I’m remembering all the cautions to NOT mess with a mother bear with cubs, and I’m also having a little chat with the Lord. It went something like this: if that bear attacks him, am I obligated to throw myself between them? I mean, I did voice my opinion- only once, Lord, so he wouldn’t say I was nagging – that I didn’t think it was a good idea to be so close, and, shockingly – that’s sarcasm – he didn’t listen to me, so really, Lord? Am I off the hook for this one?
Yeah, I know. You spiritual ladies would have been praying for safety and protection and probably wouldn’t even mention to the Good Lord one time about how good bear roast with mashed potatoes and gravy is.
Seriously, safety is of the Lord, and I believe that, but a person needs to show a little common sense, too, right?
Regardless, we didn’t get attacked and I actually got a picture of the bear (the real bear, not me – the hubs insisted I clarify).
I’ve told you we live way out, and seeing bears isn’t exactly a novelty. We have our dumpster about seventy-five yards below our house and we’ve had bears in it and around it and on it (that’s a real pain because they push the lids in and they – the lids not the bears – get stuck and are hard to pull out, and one of our kids – the one that’s named Not Me – will throw garbage on top of the lid without pulling it out, etc). We’ve stood on our deck with spotlights watching them. It’s always been at night, although a few times in the evening when we’re driving down our driveway we’ll see one.
Once, when I was picking blueberries I happened to look over and there was one in the field beside me. I think it saw me about the same time I saw it and conveniently we both ran in opposite directions and never did meet. Which, in my opinion, was a good thing.
Once when my oldest son was around twelve, maybe, he had a friend over. They’re tough dudes and wanted to sleep in a tent outside in the yard. I’m fine with that. I’ve told you about my oldest son, and I wasn’t worried about anything getting him.
I know none of you all ever did this, but I admit, I kind of messed with my kids some. Still do, I’m sorry. I said to my kid as he walked out with his sleeping bag, “You’ll be fine. Just make sure your tent is zipped up the whole way because bears can’t unzip it. Oh, and you did brush your teeth, correct? Because what smells like bad breath to humans smells like lunch to a black bear.”
Bears weren’t on his radar until I said that. : )
He kinda looked at his friend, then back at me trying to pretend his eyes weren’t the size of navel oranges. “Do you really think there are bears out there?”
I shook my head, hiding my evil smile with a fake worried look. “Nah. I was just messing with ya.”
Maybe some of you will be able to relate to this, but my husband is about a thirteen-year-old boy in a man’s body. I would like to say I’m more mature, but I can’t remember which of us had the idea.
About an hour after dark, the hubs and I crept through the yard, stopped about twenty feet from the boys’ tent and started to growl.
After about five seconds, our growls got increasingly loud and angry-sounding. (I’m actually pretty good at growling, and my whole family will agree with that statement. : )
There was some scrambling in the tent. Some yelling back and forth. More scrambling. The sound of the zipper yanking.
Then the boys shot out of the tent, flew down to the house, screaming like girls. Seriously. They were screaming so loud, they never heard the hubs and I rolling on the ground laughing until they were pounding on the door, which they couldn’t open because the hubs and I had locked it. : )
I know, I know. People like us should never have had kids. Our poor children. It’s pretty amazing that they seemed to have turned out almost normal and even more amazing that they still talk to us.
My son’s friend never came back, but I think that had more to do with the fact that we had beets for supper than any lingering issues over the bear noises.
But, you know, you reap what you sow and all that…
One June a few years after that – back when we just had a few chickens and not the big laying houses we have now – I had gone over to grab some eggs for breakfast before my kids got up. On my way back over to the house, when I was directly between the coop and the house – maybe sixty yards to both…you know how you just have this sensation that someone is watching you? You get that chill up your spine and the hair on the back of your neck raises? Know what I mean?
Seriously, I felt that, but knew it had to be nothing. My husband had left for work before daylight and our trucks were all on the road. The garage was behind me, beside the chicken coop, but it was locked up tight.
Still, that feeling had a hold on my neck and I couldn’t shake it. I stopped and turned around, scanning behind me.
Nothing.
I started to turn back around, thinking I was being silly, but still not feeling right, when my eye caught something off to the side at the edge of the woods just a dozen or so yards away.
So, yeah, I’m sure you already know it was a bear. It was sitting there – like a bear in a circus might sit, on its butt with its paws hanging down. I’m not very visual, but I can still see it, shiny black and perfectly outlined by the lush green just behind it. The round ears pricked and the nose lifted, a rectangular spot of brown on its chest.
It was staring at me.
To be fair, I was now staring right back at it, more because I was frozen and couldn’t move than to actually be rude or anything.
You know that feeling when your stomach is trying to run to the house but your heart and lungs have stopped working and your legs feel like logs caught in a pile up? It’s like the opposite of the warm fuzzies.
So, I was kinda racking my brain trying to figure out what to do. Do any of you know what to do in a situation like that? If you run, they chase you, right? I kinda felt like there must be cubs around or something, because why else would it just be staring at me?
So, I moved my eyes around (not my head, lol) but couldn’t see any little black bodies.
I thought about setting the eggs down (Do bears eat eggs?) kind of like a peace offering. But there went my kids’ breakfast. (Better to lose breakfast than to have mom get eaten? Maybe. Not sure on that one. I did have boys.)
So, I finally decide, it’s either going to eat me or it’s not. Right?
I don’t want anyone to get the mistaken idea that I was brave or anything. I seriously didn’t know what else to do – I turned around and finished walking to the house.
When I reached the door, I looked back over my shoulder and it was still sitting there, watching me. Honestly, I never even thought to go get a camera. I walked in the door, closed it and sat down on the floor. The kids found me there an hour or so later, and it was a little longer than that before my legs stopped feeling like Jello.
Ha. Okay, I love telling stories of life on the farm, but I actually do write books, too. I’ve been doing a little project with my life-time narrator, or-as-long-as-he’ll-have-me, Jay Dyess, and I wanted to share it with you.
We’ve been putting my audios up on YouTube where you can listen to the for FREE! We have around twenty of the fifty or so audios that we’ve made together up on Say with Jay – Jay’s channel. You can listen to any of them or all of them without paying a thing. I love that! I honestly can’t wait until they’re all up. I know you all work hard for your money and I love being able to give readers a bargain. : )
Here is the link to Say with Jay: https://www.youtube.com/c/SaywithJay/ Check it out. Listen to anything that catches your fancy and I’d love it if you’d hit the “Subscribe” button and leave a few comments!
Thanks so much for spending time with me today.
USA Today best-selling author Jessie Gussman writes sweet and inspirational romance from her farm in central Virginia. Having attended, but never graduating from the school of hard knocks, Jessie uses real life on the farm to inspire her cowboy, rural and blue-collar fiction.
When she’s not chasing kids, cows and the occasional roll-away haybale, Jessie enjoys wading in Naked Creek and not cleaning her house. Most of the time her main goal is to keep from catching herself on fire…again.
If you enjoy fun stories with vivid characters showcasing strong families with a ribbon of faith tying everything together, you might enjoy Jessie’s books.
I have had some encounters but mostly from afar
Those are the best kind of encounters to have! I’m glad you stayed safe. Thanks for stopping in today!
My dad put an electric fence around his bee hives because of the bears. He quit planting corn, too. They keep their garbage in a locked shed, and they bring the bird feeders in at night.
When I was a kid, bears were a rare occurrence–my parents abut Cherokee National Forest on the property formerly owned by my grandparents. Now, the bears come all the time. (Except when they’re hibernating.)
Oh, wow! Sounds like they’re a real problem there! What a pain to have to bring the bird feeders in at night.
I’ve always wanted bee hives, but bears are a problem I hadn’t considered.
Have never had an encounter with a bear…You don’t see many in the city, if any.
We honestly don’t see that many here. Maybe just five or so a year. Enough to remind a person to keep an eye out! : )
I don’t see bears either and I live in the country, but not as country as you do. We have coyotes, deer,raccoons, and ground hogs. I had an encounter with a ground hog. He was under the burn barrel and I went out to burn trash. He took off, I screamed and jumped. He did not come back while I was outside and I finished burning the trash.
Oh! They’re harmless, but they can really scare you when you’re not expecting it! I actually went to church with someone years ago who loved to eat groundhogs. I never have. : )
Oh goodness, I’d have had to change my pants after that encounter. I’m not a bear fan! We live in the country but it’s coyotes and maybe a stray mountain lion we would have to worry about.
Haha! I was scared, no doubt about it! Although I’ve heard so many stories about mountain lions, I think I’d be more scared of them than bears. Stay safe!
I have not been around bears much and I would just soon keep it that way.
Words of wisdom for sure! : )
Ah, Jessie. You tell the story about pranking your son and his friend with such glee. You’re such a devious mother – and I’m soooo glad we don’t have bears in the city!!
We saw some bear scat once when we were hiking, and even that freaked me out.
Jay does a fab job with your audio books! So generous of you to make them free for your readers!!
Ha! I think about it with glee, too! : )
I used to pick raspberries in a very rural area and I always took my dog with me to scare the bears and snakes away. I’m not sure if that worked, of if there just weren’t any, since I never saw one, but I definitely didn’t want to come nose to nose with one in the berry patch!
Thank you! Jay is awesome, and it’s a dream come true for me to offer our audios at a price everyone can afford – free!
I love audiobooks and I am excited to learn about Say it with Jay. Thank you for sharing.
Yay! I’m thrilled to share and happy you’ll check it out. There are over twenty of our audios you can listen to for free and we upload a new one every week! We have over fifty and we’re making more every month. I’m super excited about it!
Jessie, Aren’t all men a 13 year old boy in a man’s body? Best description I have heard yet. We just got back from an AF reunion and listening to these fliers recount their antics confirms men really never do grow up. Thank you for the interesting post. As parents we often do things that seemed like a good idea at the time, but in retrospect maybe not so much. It does make for memorable experiences, and if our children are still speaking to us, it wasn’t that bad.
Bears can certainly make life interesting. We live along the Blue Ridge Mountains. There have been bears around, but not often. There is a river between us and the mountains. That didn’t help our son years ago when he let the dogs out one night (we were out of town). He heard them barking and they wouldn’t come in. Of course there was no moon so he could see what was going on, so he slipped through the fence to the back field to haul them in. He found them on either side of a bear who was not happy. I don’t know who threw the first punch, but my son hit the bear in the nose and the bear swiped his arm. At that point, son ran home and dove through the fence (barbed wire was not kind to him) and the dogs followed. As usual, he refused to go to the doctor to have it taken care of. When we got home a few days later, I found bloody sheets in the laundry room and a three foot wide blood stain on the mattress. He is lucky the results weren’t more serious. There is a bit of nerve damage which he didn’t notice until later when he was working in the forge. He could smell something cooking and looked down to see a red coal on his hand “cooking” it.
Our daughter has a log house on the other side of the river in the woods. They haven’t been there over a summer yet, but they have already seen bears and have them on camera. They trap problem bears in the Smoke Mountain National Park and let them go here since the area is a bear preserve. Some people here can’t let their children play in the yard for fear of the bears. One lady had 8 bears in her yard over one week.
Thank you for the link to Say With Jay. I will be checking it out.
Oh, goodness! What a bear story your son has!! I definitely would not want to get into a boxing match with one. Although barbed wire can inflict a lot of damage as well (I have scars). Typical man who won’t go to the doctor. shakes head Thanks for the story!
Please do check out Say with Jay! I’m so excited about it – we have over 20 audiobooks up already – all free of course – and we add a new one every week!
Hi I enjoyed reading your post. Wow you have had some scary encounters! One time when we took our now 2 grown adult children when they were young fishing we saw a bear. Another time we were having a picnic and we saw a cub running and right behind it was its mama. We have also heard and seen bears digging in trash cans when we have been staying in a cabin in the mountains of NM. Have a great rest of the week and stay safe.
Sounds like you have had some close encounters as well! They’re fun to watch – especially the cubs – but only from a safe distance! Thanks for stopping in today!
Thank you for sharing this wonderful post! I’ve not been around bears.
You’re welcome! It was my pleasure! It’s much nicer to remember than to live through! lol
I enjoyed your post! I live in eastern N.C. and we have bears in the woods, but seldom see them out, except maybe at the edge of a corn field. My son (when he was about 12) saw one at the edge of the woods while walking a couple of doors down the road to see his neighbor. He did not waste anytime getting there, ha!
Haha! I do think seeing a bear will help a person go faster! lol
I loved this! I lived in West Virginia for six years as a kid & saw a few bears in the wild there. 🙂
Your blueberry-picking story made me laugh out loud! 😀 And I can so totally relate to the messing-with-your-kids mentality because my dad was the biggest teaser of all & he taught me well… & I’ve definitely passed it along to my kiddos! (especially my son… the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree)
We lost Daddie (Poppa) five years ago & one of the best ways I’ve found to pass along his memory is to tease, laugh, smile, & enjoy making other people happy! I could just imagine Daddie doing some of those very same pranks! Thanks for sharing your stories & giving me a smile & a memory of my dad today! <3
I love the little glimpse of your dad! He sounds like he was a wonderful father! So glad we could share some laughs and memories today!
Thanks, Jessie. I love your stories from the farm. God bless you.
Thank you! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for saying so!
Thanks for being here today. Thanks for sharing your Bear Adventures. You sound a lot like my mom. All five of us kids turned out just fine. LOL
Haha! I made my kids work hard, but we always played hard, too. Life is as fun as you make it! : )