Nature is a wonderful thing. Just think about the eclipse. But nature is impressive on a more earthly basis. For example, recently, next to our outbuilding we use for a meth lab, I spied a huge, glossy black spider with a very bright red hourglass shape on it. I think it's what they call a black widow, and I'm pretty sure they're poisonous. So I killed it, even though it was beautiful. But it did not weigh 300 pounds.
That would be "Butch," the black bear that was in our back yard, about thirty feet from me and my long-suffering wife. We were surprised. Lisa said, "John! That's a bear!" I followed her index finger stabbing in the direction of some bushes out back. I agreed. We could not see him very well, and so I thought maybe he was just a small bear. Then he was gone. Lisa immediately texted our friend across the lane who texted back and wrote that now he was in her neighbor's back yard.
So we hustled across the lane and looked and there he was, a beautiful specimen of a big, black bear, looking at us from about twenty yards away. There was nothing between us but green grass and, knowing that bears can cover that much ground in, like, 1.4 seconds, I suggested that we get a photo and leave him alone. Lisa wanted to get even closer for a better shot, maybe a selfie with her arm around the beast's enormous shoulders. I suggested otherwise and she reluctantly agreed, and the bear went away, disappearing into the woods.
Nature is a wonderful thing.
