Putting on the Weight
With the end of chase season, we all decided to celebrate with a picnic around the pond. With farmer Brown being dead, we know we are safe around the pond. We all have a mutual agreement, that we want our resources of rainbow trout to never run out. So, we no longer will keep any trout we may catch. There are plenty of native trout in the streams, to keep us supplied in native trout to eat. We will save the rainbow trout to grow to mammoth size. Bud was happy to hear this. He likes catching the record trout more than anything else.
Everybody brought different food items for the Picnic. Luna brought fried turkey and smoked turkey legs. Sophia made about 20 loaves of sourdough bread and deer ribs. She was out of hog ribs so Benjiman fixed 200 pounds of barbecue deer ribs. Lucy brought turnip greens with 25 pounds of bacon cooked in them. Angel fixed many different types of pies and cobblers, she also decided to try her hand at coconut cake. It is so snowy white and fluffy.
We had our lines in the water for 2 hours, before it was time to get out all our picnic baskets. The fishing has really gotten better, with the average fish now 22 to 26 inches. But we are catching several now around 28 inches and even a 30 inch, 18-pound rainbow trout. It was bitter sweet though, I was still sad, what I had done to farmer Brown, and his wife. Bud still is patiently waiting on his record trout; big bait = big fish this is his motto. He doesn’t even care that everyone else catches many more fish than he does. The only one other than Bud; who can say they have caught a world record trout is Tom. How I miss Tom and Sue.
We have a wonderful feast and everyone is stuffed. We decided it a beautiful evening, with a full moon coming up, we would just have a night under the stars tonight at the pond. The stars are so numerous tonight and air is beginning to have a slight nip to it, the trees are swaying. Bud said yes, I can fish all night long, all the other cubs was just as excited as Bud. Some of the cubs just wanted to play while others fished. All the grown bears just were glad to have a quite evening with friends and family. The quite was broken around 2am when Bud yelled, I have the world record trout on his line. With the quietness that night brings, you could hear that fish every time it broke water and leaped out of the water, with the full moon you could see the beautiful pink flash as he rolled out of the water. Bud was so excited having it on his line again. It took him almost 45 minutes before he had the trout up on land. It looks bigger than last time but we have nothing to weigh or measure him with. We know it’s a male due to the long hook jaw that only male trout have.
We strolled on down to farmer Browns cornfield, a little before sunrise, knowing it was safe to enter, we just gouged ourselves. This year we have it made with all this free corn. We ate until we could eat no more, and took a bear nap in the corn field. When we woke in the middle of tall corn stalks, filled with large 14-inch ears of corn, it’s a bear’s paradise. We decided rather than the long trip back to Sophia’s, and Lucy’s den, that we would stay with Angel and Luna. Lucy said they would stay with Luna and Sophia and myself and cubs will be at Angels.
We did this for the next 3 weeks, with Samuel now being the eldest of everyone, with the passing of Oliver, and Ceasar, Samuel said, he has never seen it this good for us bears before. We always were faced for possible being shot in the corn fields, but now they are safe. Our lives consisted to eating corn, and gorging on all the many acorns now littering the forest floor. Of course we would add in our normal meals, of back straps, turkey, greens and bacon, and sourdough bread, etc. I know we have put on much more weight faster this year, than we did last year.
It is now only one week before the dreaded kill season, so we all decided to go back to our dens. Once back at my den, I told Sophia I was going to go to check on Ann. I wanted to make sure she was OK. At her house, her mom and dad said, she had moved out. That Ann and her best girlfriend from high school had moved in together at Lucifer’s. They said, that Lucifer’s Brother Dominick had come by. He gave Ann the deed to the farm, he said he doesn’t want it, so he wanted her to have it. He said that he was never a farmer, and has no desire to keep the farm. He knew that Ann always wanted her own farm.
So, I headed to Anns new farm, I see a pile of ashes, where the old farm house was. But the mother-in-law’s suite, had smoke coming from the chimney. I walked down and knocked. A young woman dressed in pajama’s looked terrified, to see a bear at her door, as she screamed. Ann came to the door. and said this is Benjiman, that I had told you about. Ann introduced the young lady as her best friend, Alice; and told Alice this is Benjiman. Alice said she wasn’t used to a bear being at her door. They welcomed me in. Ann told me that she has gotten very close, to her best friend from high school, after the Lucifer ordeal, Alice has been right by my side. I said, I see the old farmhouse must have burned. Ann said yes it did.
The day I was given the deed, myself and Alice came over, with 10 gallons of diesel fuel. I couldn,t go in the house myself, but Alice did and she poured the diesel fuel throughout the house. Once it was saturated, I lit the match from just outside the door, as I lit some newspaper and threw it inside. We stepped back and watched it burn, until it was nothing left, but some smoldering areas. I had to finish the job of destroying anything, that reminded me of Lucifer. There were many different colors of smoke coming up from the living room area. There was a rainbow of color. We made sure that we were not in the path of the smoke. Ann says her and Alice, have lived here in the mother-in-law suite, for 2 weeks and they have been very happy being farm girls. They said come on out back on the patio, they have some ribs smoking, they asked that I to have supper with them tonight. After supper I had to get back to the den, as tomorrow is the first day of kill season. I’m concerned for Maverick, most of chase season was horrible for him and his family. Although he has stepped up his game towards the end of chase season. What will tomorrow hold for everyone? What kind of havoc will the next 5 weeks bring to my family and friends? Will all the dogs we killed during chase season, have that group of hunters, killing every bear they, see? I lost Oliver last year, I don’t want to lose any of my friends and family this year!
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