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| Bear just outside our fence |
International Fairy Day, June 24, was
exactly the day I
expected to be in the peak of strawberry season.
Last summer, all our strawberry beds were on their last legs…but there
was one vigorous plant that was
shooting out runners like crazy. Hoping to create home-grown berry crowns, I
set the runners into pots—and ended up with a couple of dozen!
Last fall, I transplanted the crowns, and ended up with four
new strawberry beds, filled with robust plants. And as this month rolled
around, I anticipated a veritable berry feast.
Then along came the scourge of our summer: a bear.
This young black bear has snuck through our fences numerous
times, hitting all four berry beds. The first time, it tore into the
earliest-fruiting bed that I had netted early, ate all the ripe ones, whomping one plant right out of the ground, and mangling the fencing around the bed.
It hit the other three beds, swiping at barely-pink
strawberries. While John and I double-fenced and re-netted the one seriously
invaded bed, the other, larger beds would be far more difficult to protect.
Well, I could see the writing on the wall.
With a heavy heart, I cut all the berry clusters from the
plants in those three beds. The bear has trampled all over our garden, so I
didn’t want to risk further damage--and I was sure it would attack my strawberries again.
A couple of days ago, the bear tried to get back into that now double-reinforced
bed—but didn’t get any berries. Instead, it mangled the outer fence, and gotten
the netting seriously awry.
Viewing the limited damage, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Which only lasted until I heard a distressed, “Cheep, cheep.”
“There’s a bird in the net,” John said, low.
I looked on the other side of the bed and there was a female
towhee, entwined in the net. Towhees are cheeky birds, and have often gone where other,
wiser birds have feared to tread: they’ll try to get into even heavily-netted
berry beds.
This bird had managed to worm its way through the disarrayed
netting, and actually ate two of the biggest, reddest berries. As soon as we
came over, it had tried to escape, and gotten tangled up in the nets.
John is our bird rescuer around here, and he gently lifted
up the bird in the net, and tried to extricate it, as its cheep, cheeps intensified.
I ran to get the garden scissors, and though it took him
about ten minutes, he was able to cut the little bird out. He set it
carefully on the ground, then this plucky little girl crawled over to a protected
spot among some stones, tucked herself up in a little roll, and just sat there. Barely breathing by the looks of it.
The next day, John and I found the bird a little ways from its
hidey-hole, dead. I imagine it died from a combination of a broken wing, and
shock.
With this casualty of
a little innocent bird, this young bear has been even more destructive than
simply wreaking havoc in the garden.
Our nearest neighbors are having their share of problems
from the bear too—earlier this week, it destroyed their bird feeder. Like, killed the feeder. We four are having a confab this weekend to see if we can
figure out a solution.
The marionberries will be ready soon, and then the blueberries—without more preventative measures, I shudder to think of what the bear could do to all our fruit and infrastructure!
On a happier note: Happy International Fairy Day! The day is
loosely connected to the June 23 tradition of St. John’s Eve, the celebration
of midsummer, celebrated in many Scandinavian countries and Ireland too.
Now, if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know I’m big
on fairies—especially Irish fairies—and International Fairy Day always lightens
my heart. If you have a whimsical side too, and haven’t completely discounted
the idea that there may be more mysteries in nature than we will ever understand,
maybe you’ll be celebrating fairies tomorrow too!
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| The fairies in our house! |
A quick note: I’ve been posting weekly here at the Little
Farm in the Foothills blog the last couple of years, with only a few misses—and
one of them was last week. This bear has increased out workload in so many
ways, and this summer, John and I have to re-do as well as rebuild a number of
sections of our fencing all over the property.
We've already started redoing our north orchard fencing--a portion of destroyed fence that another, bigger bear did getting to our apple trees last year.
And trying to keep up with the rest of our garden is going to be a challenge! I’m still planning to post here each week, generally Thursday or Friday, if I can. But if I'm not able to post weekly, I'll aim to share my Little Farm news every other week.
There’s lots more about our bear invasion in my June newsletter—it’s free,
and you don't have to subscribe to read it! I’ll be sharing this continuing bear saga in the
next monthly newsletter, out July 10.
Maybe tomorrow, on International Fairy Day, I can fit in communing with our Little Farm fairies for a little positive energy. Which I think I'll need, to keep
dealing with our bear invader!
