The seeds were the giveaway.

I have a friend who owns a house down near Boston and a second house up in Vermont. This past week he told me he had a dog problem, and since I have so many dogs and know about "animals" maybe I could help him. Seems that on the deck of this second house, which he only visits about every other weekend, he found a pile of poo. Now, normally he would have just cleaned it up and not said a word but apparently he'd gone up twice now in the past month and had to clean several piles - like 6 or 7 actually. He wanted to know if I could give him some advice on how to discourage the dog from making these messes. He also happened to mention that this part of the deck was under an overhang, so out of the rain which is why he supposed the dog was living there.

Now, if you know anything about animals you know that dogs don't do that. Oh they might do it once but when something does it that much, you start thinking more like "lair" - whatever the critter is, it is living there. Again, dogs just don't work like that, not on top of a deck out in the open. So I mentioned its too bad I can't see these piles of poo myself because I had a hunch. And you know he had a picture on his cell phone! (Which worried me a little about my friend, who takes pictures of poo piles!)

Anyway, the poo was full of seeds. And it was a large pile, like from a big dog. Very likely by now you realize it was not a dog at all but a happy little black bear! I say little because in Colorado they are much larger, but here they are only about 6' tall. Anyway he sent his picture and story to the nice people at the VT department of wildlife and they absolutely confirmed my guess.

But here's the interesting part (smile!). My friend has a wife and two kids who sometimes travel with him to the house up north. He declared that if he told his wife there was a bear she would be afraid and probably be reluctant to go outside with him, but instead would be worried all the time. So he decided not to tell her. I got to thinking about that.

See, the world is a bad place. We would rather not frighten our children or worry new converts to Christ about the dangers. We would rather talk about roses and love and hearts. But I think we do them a disservice. We must be willing to warn about the dangers lest they take one by surprise and overcome them. Imagine if no one warned you and then you "met" the bear when stepping outside. You would of course be frightened. But imagine telling your husband and finding out he knew already! I think that may do more harm than the bear! Or having your child slip out and getting bitten. Yikes.

Actually though I was also hoping we might consider something else, like raspberries. I love them, and there should be more of it in the world. Well, bears help that happen because they also like raspberries. Funny how the seed can be transported from place to place by what seems an imperfect way but actually becomes beneficial to the growth of it. Preaching seems much like that on occasion, fertilizer for fertile minds. <smile!>

Randy