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It isn’t often that we’re allowed a rare glimpse into the private lives of the inhabitants of Yellowstone. But that’s the case this morning as we see Rosie, a single mom, taking a few moments to herself. The kids are up a tree, they’ve been fed, and this opportunity to stop and take stock of her life comes all too infrequently. She thinks about the dreams she had as a young bear when anything was possible and she thinks about how full her life has been with two cubs every two years as regular as clockwork. She was a victim of her own biology but it was a choice she willing made at the time. But sometimes she wonders if there wasn’t more to life than she received.

At times like this she sometimes feels that there is something missing. Always in the back of her mind is the thought of Big Red, the bear that has had sired so many of her cubs. She wishes he were around more instead of the visits he pays her every other year, but she also knows that isn’t realistic. They fight, she has to constantly be on guard when he’s around the kids as he is a stern father given to moments of unexpected rage. And of course there is that wandering eye of his, but she misses him, sometimes. Like now.

The kids are wrestling up in the tree and the smaller one is squalling, scared he’s going to fall. She woofs once quietly and they cease their constant bickering. They’ll be down soon, hungry, and she’ll be nursing them until its time to feed herself and then it starts all over again. These moments come too infrequently and she cherishes her time alone. These are first year cubs so she won’t see Red for another year and a half. But there’s plenty to do, twins are a pawfull.