Bear’s Head in Autumn Leaves
By John L. Peyton
The original owner, or tenant, of this skull hung around our farm for a couple of months. She moved quietly and we didn’t often see her, but she was all around us, all the time, all over the place.
We had cut a road back into the woods and had fenced off and partly cleared fields on both sides of it. At each gate were steel barrels full of ground grain. The bear would push these over, knock the tops off, and eat what she wanted, spreading quite a bit on the road. Every time she climbed over a fence (and that was whenever she wanted to get to the other side) she tore it off the posts, leaving it such a wreck that she might as well have gone straight through it.
I was afraid that she might get started on the livestock, so I would walk out in the evening to make sure that they were all right. Then I would sometimes hear the fence line creak under her weight, or smell the strong and unmistakable odor of damp bear. I was familiar with that from drawing at the zoo, and also you sometimes get the whiff of it on a portage, and know that a bear has faded into the woods to give you the right-of-way. (As they almost always do.)
She never bothered our birds or animals. My wife and children didn’t seem to worry about her, but the neighbor’s kids wouldn’t even walk past our place. When the apples ripened, the bear got to coming into our yard at night and would even climb the trees for them, which didn’t do the trees any good. Night trips to our outdoor toilet would be
enlivened by her presence. You couldn’t see her black bulk in the dark. She would stand still until the walker was almost on her, and then go crashing off into the brush.
She was not in any way mean, but we couldn’t go on supporting her any longer, so I shot her. She was big and fat and good. I put on weight eating her that I have never been able to get rid of since. I guess that’s about the only real danger from most bears.
The next year I found her head-bone in the autumn leaves. I still use it sometimes as a model for the still-life class.
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Bear’s Head in Autumn Leaves
By John L. Peyton
The original owner, or tenant, of this skull hung around our farm for a couple of months. She moved quietly and we didn’t often see her, but she was all around us, all the time, all over the place.
We had cut a road back into the woods and had fenced off and partly cleared fields on both sides of it. At each gate were steel barrels full of ground grain. The bear would push these over, knock the tops off, and eat what she wanted, spreading quite a bit on the road. Every time she climbed over a fence (and that was whenever she wanted to get to the other side) she tore it off the posts, leaving it such a wreck that she might as well have gone straight through it.
I was afraid that she might get started on the livestock, so I would walk out in the evening to make sure that they were all right. Then I would sometimes hear the fence line creak under her weight, or smell the strong and unmistakable odor of damp bear. I was familiar with that from drawing at the zoo, and also you sometimes get the whiff of it on a portage, and know that a bear has faded into the woods to give you the right-of-way. (As they almost always do.)
She never bothered our birds or animals. My wife and children didn’t seem to worry about her, but the neighbor’s kids wouldn’t even walk past our place. When the apples ripened, the bear got to coming into our yard at night and would even climb the trees for them, which didn’t do the trees any good. Night trips to our outdoor toilet would be
enlivened by her presence. You couldn’t see her black bulk in the dark. She would stand still until the walker was almost on her, and then go crashing off into the brush.
She was not in any way mean, but we couldn’t go on supporting her any longer, so I shot her. She was big and fat and good. I put on weight eating her that I have never been able to get rid of since. I guess that’s about the only real danger from most bears.
The next year I found her head-bone in the autumn leaves. I still use it sometimes as a model for the still-life class.
Buy the painting...