A Bear, Wildfires & Odile

It's 60 degrees outside, bright, sunny and breezy.  Mid-80s are predicted for today and 90 tomorrow - then, maybe, some rain.   My kits are enjoying running in and out, and I've re-opened the back window.  The big news here, besides the ebola epidemic, battling ISIL/ISIS, and the negative advertisement battles that have been set up between Mark Udall and Corey Gardner, is the neighborhood bear, the western wildfires, and the path of Tropical Storm Odile from Baja Mexico to our area.
   The neighborhood black bear has been hanging around for almost a week - it looks to be between two and four years old, and other than raiding some bird feeders, it seems pretty peaceful.  It sleeps in cottonwood trees in back yards along Emerald Road, including Alexy's old house, but roams the neighborhood from dusk to dawn (leaving huge piles of scat, so it's feeding well).  The neighborhood apple, crab apple and pear trees are producing a huge crop this fall, and I'm assuming that's what is keeping the bear well-fed and hanging out in the neighborhood.  The only problem with that, is that the Emerald Road back yards are only separated by a shallow ditch from Centennial Middle School.  We were able to keep the bear "a secret" for about 5 days, but then someone called the newspaper, and it sent out photographers. Now the kids are aware of the bear, and the neighborhood is a little tense...   Black bear in Emerald cottonwood tree:

  When Beatrice and I went to Turley's for breakfast Saturday morning, we walked within a yard of a body in bushes beside the sidewalk and never even noticed it.  (How gauche!)  We were busy talking and laughing and watching other traffic on the sidewalk - not looking down in the juniper bushes beside the walkway.  A few minutes after we walked by, another pedestrian did look down, and saw a dead man lying among the bushes.  He called the police, and, while the man is currently unofficially identified, it was one of the homeless men who hang out at the end of our apartment house.

  There are 15 major, uncontrolled, wildfires burning in the western United States right now - 11 are in California, 4 are in Oregon, and one is in Washington state.  According to numbers reported to the National Forest Service last night, 191,691 acres were burning, or had been burned in these fifteen fires. 191,691 acres is equal to 299.5 square miles...  It seems almost impossible.

  What was Hurricane Odile is now a tropical storm - and is pouring rain on Baja Mexico.  The current storm track has the remnants of Odile reaching our area on Monday, bringing lots of rain.  If only the steering air currents could direct this rain-dumping storm up the west coast, instead of sending it inland...  Some, or most of the forest fires (wildfires) might be almost totally doused by the rain from the tropical storm.