Well, we’ve done it. No surprise to anyone who knows us, or maybe even any of you kind people who read Mamaboe with any regularity.
We’ve bought land for our retirement near Glacier Park, Montana.
Land on which we will one day build a modest log home. Land on which we will one day live out our salad years with the hopes that our children will visit often, or, at the very least, drop our grandchildren off with frequency for appropriate grand-parental doting and spoiling.
But in the meantime, this pristine woodland will need to be merely protected and stewarded. 14 acres it is, complete with old growth forest of Birch and Pine and Hemlock and Aspen…oh, and a pure, glacial melt, gurgling creek. And it’s currently populated with any number of wild birds.
And Bears.
And Mountain Lions.
And Eagles.
And Mooses.
(It was the Mooses that sold me, frankly.)
So this trip to Montana, My Captain and I introduced Critter and Varmint to our real estate investment.
My Captain took Critter for a walk around the perimeter of the property and they came upon a tree that had been well and truly used as a scratching post from a Grizzly Bear.
“Now wait just a minute!” You cry! “Why do you say those are from a grizzly? I mean, many different animals could have caused that scratching!”
True. If those scratchings were just regular scratchings. Many different wild animals like to dig for insects hors-d’oevres, and many like to sharpen their claws on bark.
But see, there is one reason, and one reason alone that we are more than sure it was a Griz.
See that kid? That 9-year-old boy who stands several feet tall? He’s about 7 feet below the top most scratching.
This ain’t the doins of a little baby racoon folks. And if it is….
I don’t want to meet the Mama!
Mama Boe 