I hike to get to know my working area better, to look for bear sign and to check out how bear-foods are looking each year. One of the primary summer foods in this area is huckleberries...and I keep an eye out on how the berries are doing each year as they can tell me a lot about what the bears are going to do. I won't get into bears and berries here...so lets just say that when huckleberry (and other natural berry) production is good out there, my work schedule is pretty quiet.
Both people and bears alike search long and hard for hucks to pick each year. While this area of the state has excellent natural huckleberry production, good berry picking spots are coveted secrets...and I'm not giving any away here! On average, the huckleberries look pretty good this year and I look forward to picking them over the next several weeks...which is necessary if you want hot huckleberry pancakes all winter long, and I do.
Holly loves huckleberries (and thimble berries). Several years ago I showed her how to eat berries from the bush (which wasn't hard) while I was out huckleberry picking. So each year she goes with me to one of my berry picking spots where she can be off leash and eat berries to her hearts content. Unfortunately that usually means following me around lie glue and trying to eat each and every berry I pick...while I'm picking it. She gets some of them, but the rest get slobbered on while I tell her to bugger off and find her own stinking berries. Last year she was too injured to pick berries with me, so I'm looking forward to taking her this year...and also seeing what Danee thinks about all this berry picking nonsense. She's not really a fan of berries...yet.
In other news, I updated several of my previous blog posts about our shelter dogs...but I'll give a quick update on them here too. Cooper, the blind hound mix, was adopted. Susie, the coonhound, was transferred to a neighboring shelter as their area is more 'have a hound dog as a pet' community. Spud has someone coming to look at her tomorrow, but if they do not end up adopting her (keep your fingers crossed!) she will soon be transferred to different neighboring shelter that specializes in adopting out bully-breeds. In the last few weeks we've had 4 dogs adopted with another one hopefully being adopted tomorrow (that's pretty good for a shelter that has a 10 dog capacity). That will leave us just 2-3 dogs up for adoption...and while we have a mostly empty shelter, we'll be doing some kennel improvements. Whoot! It's so nice that these great dogs are finding great homes :)
Speaking of great dogs, have I shared how much I love this dog? Just sayin...
1 comment:
It sounds as if Holly uses the same berry eating technique as my dogs! They follow me carefully trying to poach the berries that I'm picking! Drives me nuts but I'm still glad to have the dogs along.
As for your guess about where I was, you were right. I don't want to get involved in the social media firestorm or the controversy so I'm keeping names out of my accounts. Suffice to say that I'm a biology PhD with a lot of experience and I was quite impressed. However, I don't know all the facts so I can't weigh in on the specifics of the controversy. You'll see that I have my email address associated with my comments (you can just hit "reply" and it will go to me, unlike other commenters). If you want to, I'd be interested to know your views, since you have direct experience in the field of bear management.
I'm glad that your bears have so much to eat too! Ours are in hog heaven, as are the ones who I visited.
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