In the eleven years since I've been living in the little Oregon coastal town of Florence I've never seen so many bears as I did last year. If I put out a cake of suet to entice the birds, some bear had, by day's end, pried open the little metal cage that holds the suet and had himself, or herself, a tasty snack. All right, at least the bears won't touch the sunflower seeds, I thought. The next noon a young bear was sitting on the bird feeding platform just outside my kitchen window, his right paw cradling a bird feeder by now almost empty of sunflower seeds. Smart bear, slow-to-learn homeowner.
I live in what when I was young I swore I’d rather be dead than ever live in—a mobile home in a senior park. Most single wide mobile homes are fourteen feet across; mine is only twelve; it’s more a trailer than a mobile home. I have a small living room divided from a small kitchen with a counter containing cupboards, then a narrow hallway off of which are a small pantry, the electric forced hot air furnace, the bathroom (sink, toilet, tub and shower), then, in the rear, the bedroom, most of which is taken up by a double bed. I live alone but have a cat that sleeps on the bed nights whenever the spirit so moves him.
The place is about twenty-five years old. Some past owner built a two-room wooden addition onto the mobile home, which has a thin metal skin. One room in the addition—I call it the family room—has a Fisher wood stove and, along one of the shorter walls, a built-in bookcase with sliding-door cabinets below. The other room is the utility room, which, has a toilet, lavatory, washer and dryer, and shelves for storage.
Getting to know....
FLORENCE, OREGON
Walk through Enchanted Valley some morning and you might see a coyote,
a deer, maybe even a bear. Click for larger picture.
Click on the picture to learn more about bears in Florence.
Wild elk roam the Siuslaw National Forest, only a few miles outside Florence. Click for larger picture.
