Today we were heading out to work, drove up our little street and turned onto US 221. We hadn’t gone very far when we saw what looked like a large dog running towards the road. Then we realized it wasn’t a dog, but a black bear. Which don’t run so much as lope, and not all that fast, as it turns out. I slammed on the brakes and barely stopped in time to avoid stocking our new freezer with bear meat. It seemed rather small to me, so I don’t think it was full grown. Probably it was picking through somebody’s trash.

Of course, now I’m all paranoid we’re going to come home one day and find it munching on our beehives.