TABLE OF CONTENTS Bearnana Bread
Cherry to speak at the
Boulder County Horse Assoc.
Happy
New Year 2008 !
It's Going to be Great ! As
part of the New Year, it's my penchant to try something new, so instead of a how-to
newsletter this month, I'm going to tell a story. It's a true life adventure that
happened to Richard and me this fall.
I hope you stay warm, enjoy the
story and come back next month for some Q&As.
 ©
2008 Cherry Hill ©
Copyright Information Bearnana
Bread It was the last Wednesday in
August when the cricket moved into our house. We
were just headed to bed when I heard a loud chirp on my side of the bed. Richard
and I looked behind and under everything in that corner for the elusive cricket
but finally gave up about 10:30. Around midnight when we were just into that wonderful
deep sleep, I surfaced because of an odd noise that didn't fit my dream.  Quite
matter-of-factly I said, "Richard, there's an animal in the house."
Groggily he replied, "I heard it, too, but thought it was you stomping crickets."
He got out of bed and grabbed the flashlight
from the nightstand. A minute later he came back reporting that the front door
was wide open and the remote controller bin near my recliner had been knocked
over. "One of the cats probably
came in, knocked it over and got scared." For
20 years of warm months, we've slept with our solid doors open, inviting in the
cool mountain breezes through the screen doors. On a gusty night, a screen door
could blow open, but on this particular night, it was perfectly still. "How
did the door get open and why would a cat head to that specific spot?" I
wondered.  Then
I heard it again. This time, Richard rolled out of bed with more of the interest
of an explorer. After a minute or so, I tiptoed out to see what was going on.
He said in a hushed tone, "You gotta see this…" and for 10 minutes,
like two CSIs we combed the living room and dining room with flashlights uncovering
clues: front door wide open again, screen shredded, saliva on the recliner, controller
with one button popped out, hair and seeds on the TV table, muddy tracks on the
Wall Street Journal, scrape marks and bite marks all the way through my movie
notebook and into the top of the wooden table next to my chair.
These
calling cards most definitely said a bear had been to visit - twice in the last
half hour!  As
we went to work with the cleaning supplies and vacuum, I realized that my Native
American horse fetishes that were just inches from the bite and claw marks were
exactly as I had left them the night before. A fetish is an animal hand-carved
out of stone by a Native American artist, typically Zuni. Fetishes are said to
embody the spirit of the animal.
 What's
odd is that just a few days before, I had purchased my first non-horse fetish
- a bear that I placed on a book to stand guard above the horse herd. That bear
was now lying on his side near the book "The Wisdom of the Native Americans."
Could it be that the midnight bear knocked over the bear fetish on his way out
the door? Or that the bear fetish, using all of his power and strength to push
the midnight bear out of our house, was now so exhausted that he just had to lie
down and rest? Well, I'm sticking with that last version.
Once
we got all the slobber wiped up, we went back to bed. This time we closed and
locked both doors.  The
next morning, I inspected the back door and saw the bear's paw marks there, too.
It was lucky he wasn't able to get in the back because that's where our freezer,
spare frig and pantry are located. What a mess that could have been!
I
also noticed that on the front door there was one perfect left paw mark in mud
on the glass. I could just picture the bear standing on his hinds, balancing with
his left paw on the glass as he shredded the screen and pulled open the door with
his right. I said to Richard, "Let's leave that one print there for awhile.
I like it." Also with the clarity
of daylight, we realized that the bear had been so drawn to my recliner area by
chocolate and caramel calcium chews I keep in a small drawer. Maybe it was a bear
with osteoporosis.  It
was time for our morning cup of tea and a piece of that freshly baked banana bread…but
where was the loaf? I distinctly remember putting it on the dining room counter
before we went to bed. Ah…that's what he came back for. We chuckled and knew
that forever after, in our house, it would be known as bearnana bread.
We
know we were lucky. We've heard of entire house doors ripped off their hinges,
refrigerators and freezers ransacked, furniture shredded, and lots of smashing
and crashing as a bear desperately searches for food or panics trying to get out
of a house. Most visiting bears are not
so discriminating or polite as was our midnight bear. 
Boulder
County Horse Association Annual Meeting
Wednesday February 6, 2008
6:30
– 8:30 PM
Spice of Life Event Center, 5706 Arapahoe, Boulder, Colorado
Free to BCHA Members
$10 for non-members which may be applied to membership
that
evening.
Featured speaker: Cherry Hill presenting “Effective
Horsekeeping”
For Additional Information: www.boulderhorse.org | 
