Black Bear near Sandy Beach Road

Some fellas don't mind the rain one bit.  This big black bear was taking a stroll along the shore near Sandy Beach Road.  Sam Lewis got these photos tonight of what I'm guessing is one of our resident black bears.  Several people have spotted bears in the area of West Shore Road - a mother with two cubs on one occasion and a much larger bear alone another time.  Perhaps this one.  Here's what Same wrote:
 Sunday at 7:45 PM, a large black bear strolled by our house about 10 feet from the living room windows.   A few minutes later it came back headed up the pond towards Richer’s former house.  For a sense of scale, the kayaks are 10 footers.   Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I didn’t want to open the window!

I wouldn't want to open the window, either!  This looks like a really big bear.  I think they are fairly hungry this time of year.   Not much for them to eat yet and it was a long winter.  Perhaps this one had been fishing for his supper. He looks as if it would take a lot of food to keep him happy.  I sure wouldn't want to make him mad.

There are apparently a few bears hanging out in the West Shore Road area this year.  Alice Aimi told us she's seen a mother and two cubs, and Kate Chatot has had at least one bear in her area - but that's not news, they are probably still looking for the bee hives they used to raid at Kate's house.  

We've had heavy rain most of the day.  I haven't measured the amount of rainfall, but I think it will be well over an inch when I measure it tomorrow morning.  The wind blew like the dickens this afternoon in addition to torrential rain at times,  but we didn't lose power.  Everything seems to have quieted down tonight, and tomorrow will be a fairly nice day, according to the forecast.  We needed the rain and everything will be nice and fresh tomorrow.  I'm amazed at how lush and green everything is now.  It seems as if the leaves and flowers developed almost overnight.  I have iris, honeysuckle, bleeding heart, lupines, lilies of the valley and lots of lilacs blooming. And lots of witch grass and other weeds, including dandelions growing where they aren't wanted.  I've been weeding nearly every day recently, but still have a lot more to do.  The weeds grow much faster than I can dig them out.  I need to get some heavy mulch down - soon.