7/28/11 DOG DOWN THE STAIRS, BEARS IN THE BEDROM (ALMOST)

A FOGHORN MORNING

NEW SUMAC  SEED HEAD

...SOON TURNS BRILLIANT RED

Thursday, 7:30 AM.  63 degrees, wind W, calm.  The sky is blue but there is considerable fog on the channel, and the fog horns have been blowing since early morning.  The barometer predicts partly cloudy skies.  We had a torrential downpour yesterday afternoon that left us about an inch of rain.
    We had some excitement last night that started with Lucky, poor old thing, falling down the basement stairs; bumpity-bump, thump. When I turned on the light he stood at the bottom, wagging his tail and obviously wondering what had happened. The stairs are carpeted so he didn’t really hurt himself, but I will have to put a chair in front of the open stairway at night from now on, since he may do it again.  Once dogs do something, good or bad, they are likely to make a habit out of it.  Wide awake after the commotion and having to drag lucky back up the stairs, we were trying to go back to sleep when we heard several dogs barking up the road .  All the ruckus reminded me that screen doors might not keep a bear out of the house, and just as I said “sounds like the dogs have raised a bear,” there was a loud snarling “woof” as a bear or bears came charging past the open bedroom door that goes out onto the front deck.  The bear had evidently been eating mulberries across the road and decided to skedaddle through our front yard when the dogs began to bark. That’s when I got up and closed all the open doors, as a bear in the bedroom would not be a good thing.  Maybe I am not giving Lucky credit for having sensed he bear in the first place, which is perhaps why he was wandering around in the dark and fell down the stairs.
    The staghorn sumac (Rhuus typhina, in the Anacardiaceae, the cashew family) flowers have been pollinated, and the fuzzy, conical compound fruits are turning first mauve and then bright purple-red.  All the old seed heads ave now dropped off.  Male and female flowers are on different shrubs or clones of shrubs, and the male flowers, having done their job, have withered and fallen.