Storytelling

In the days that followed my butchering experience, I told the story to a number of people. Family, friends, folks who stopped in to the store...no one was spared the details. Since it was such a new experience for me, I just wanted to share it. Seeing the reactions of my listeners was a delight. For the most part, the women were, I would say, impressed. If that type of thing didn't bother them, they were even enthusiastic about it. The men, on the other hand...well, I don't even know a phrase for being Really Impressed.

One friend stopped in by chance the day after. I was busy trying to set up fencing for the chickens that I had recently acquired. When he heard I had birds, he said he couldn't wait to go home and tell his wife. I asked if he wanted to see them. We got to the henhouse, and when I opened the door, he saw the bear head on the floor. He asked where it had come from, and I told him that I had butchered it yesterday. (I had temporarily stowed it in the bottom of the coop, so that I could prepare a wire cage and put it deep into the backwoods.) I told him about my experience, and he said he really couldn't wait to go home now to tell his wife. "Wait til I tell her! Greg's got quite a woman there! Wait til I tell her!" I just laughed to myself. Wasn't I doing what every person does? You do what you have to do.

Other fellows who stopped in to browse heard my story. They, too, were duly impressed by it. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but evidently it was. In the end, it even got me an invitation to elk hunting camp in Montana, with friends, later in the fall. My one concern now, though, is that if we get a call on another rogue bear, Greg will turn to me and say, "Why don't you take care of it?" Sometimes there's danger in knowing too much.

Now I have a nice, clean, white bear skull to hang somewhere. I also have the claws, and someday hope to do some beading with them. We have some roasts in the freezer. And I'm hoping that this year's crop of bears are out there having a good life, finding berries, plants and anything else that makes them full and happy.