Ruth Bernhard obviously did not live in the midst of a modern housing development built by Wimpy (the house builder, not the fast food chain) and neither do you. You have a great view from your bedroom, welll captured.
I saw a young cougar charging up between these very trees at an amazing speed a few years ago. When it saw me it turned on a dime and raced back down the gullley at the same breakneck speed.
A few years later I saw a larger one, or the same one more fully grown, a half a mile east of here. I was on a macadam road, coming downhill from an early November morning walk, wearing a fawn colored duffle coat and mittens and the rising sun was at my back. I spotted it about a hundred and fifty yards away, but couldn't tell what it was at first. It was curious about me. too, and cautiously made its way toward me. I suppose it was stalking me, but all I could think about was, "Wow! That's a puma! I've seen a puma!! (which is what they were called in Southern Ohio when I was growing up, though we never saw any.)" I was so excited! At about fifty yards it paused for a longer moment, crouched low to the ground, looking intently at me, assessing, I suppose, if I was edible and whether it could take me or the other way around. Finally it broke off and ran past me up the hill along a sunken gully that ran parallel to the road. I suppose at its closest then it was 25 or 30 feet away. It was really something!
It wasn't until after it's past and I'd started on down the hill that I though, "Maybe I ought to check my six after all," but when I turned to look back it was nowhere to be seen.
As for bears, our neighbor across that road keeps horses, and he had to call the authorities to remove a small black bear that had wandered over the ridge dividing his property from the wild lands of the northern corner of the Crow Indian Reservation, but I haven't seen any around here myself.
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