Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 15, 1993 TAG: 9308150034
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was preserved in a mud puddle that had been baked dry by the summer sun. We had spotted it just before a welcome rain would erase it.
The foot pads, with the toes giving the appearance of a flat-footed man, left much more drama recorded in the dirt than just someone out on a barefoot romp.
"The bear is back," I said.
We hadn't seen any signs of him - or her or them - last year, when Mother Nature's cupboard was mostly bare. The mast crop had been a failure and our mountain apple trees were barren.
Maybe he'd foraged elsewhere, traveling great distances, even going over the mountain into the wilderness area. Property lines, even county lines, hold little meaning for a hungry bear.
When we drove a few hundred yards beyond the track, we could see that he had been busy this year. He had muscled his way into tangles of blackberry vines, tramping them flat to fill his belly with their black fruit.
There's something humorous about thoughts of a big, powerful bear handpicking blackberries like a youngster on summer break.
Not so funny was what he'd been doing to our apple orchard. He'd pretty well destroyed the early ripening Lodi tree and done considerable harm to others, some of them just begining to overcome the thrashing he'd inflicted two seasons earlier.
All through the orchard, from tree to tree, were wide, well-formed paths. He obviously was checking the crop daily, going from the Northern Spy to the Golden Delicious, to the Grimes Golden, to the Lodi, to the Winesap, to the Golden Russett, to the Stayman, to the Rambo, to the Jerseymac.
All the apples on the Lodi were gone, and so were most of the limbs, snapped off when he teetered to pick fruit from the outer branches. Only one apple was left on the Jerseymac.
Although he didn't have a Stark Brothers chart of ripening dates, I figured he knew the Rambo would be next to ripen. So we hurriedly picked it, even through the fruit wasn't quite ready.
I must admit to taking considerable satisfaction in outfoxing this brute. Maybe he needed the apples more than I did, and I really don't mind him taking his share. But must he mutilate my trees?
You don't do a lot of heavy reasoning when you are picking apples half expecting something twice your size to come through the undergrowth. But I got to thinking that the bear simply was reclaiming old habitat, if, indeed, his kind ever really gave it up.
Our little orchard is on the side of a mountain where my great-great granddad built a cabin in 1838 and raised a family of 10. No one lives there now. All that is left is a heap of foundation stones and a little clearing where we planted our orchard. And the bear.
My great-great grandpa had the reputation of being a fierce bear hunter. When he was in his 80s, troubled by the infirmities of age, his family asked him if he would like to live his life over.
He said he had no desire to do that, but he would like to have one more good bear hunt on Red Lick Mountain.
After he died, a time came when the bears all but disappeared, but we have only to look at our apple trees to determine they've made a comeback.
I feel certain that Grandpa John would be happy over the fact that maybe even animals of the bloodline he pursued have survived to reappear - sleek and graceful and smart. And they are challenging his great-great grandson as they once challenged him.
by CNB