Tag Archives: grubs

Dog Days Of Summer

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The dog days of summer are upon us, and no where is it more noticeable than in the hollows and valleys that crisscross Tower road in Yellowstone National Park. Dog days are the days of late summer usually between the last week of July until the middle of August, when the very air you breathe is hot, humid, and oppressive. It saps the vitality and enthusiasm for life right out of your body and leaves you just plain tired. And if the truth be known kind of cranky.

Actually up in Yellowstone, Dog days are a misnomer as there are very few dogs in the park, due to the fact that the wolves and bears like to eat them, so the bears fill in for them. This is Rosie. Rosie has been on display since early March, dutifully bringing out her twins, Virgil and Emma, so the tourists can see real live bears in the wild. The kids have been a handful and hardly notice the weather, Dog days or not, and fill up Rosie’s time with child management skills she has acquired over years and years of raising cubs.

Today’s a little different because she has just about reached her limit. Her teeth hurt, the bottom of her feet are sweating and she had decided to shave off her coat. She has sent the kids up a tree and told them it was quiet time and when they asked her when they could come back down she answered “Maybe in the Spring.” The oppressive air has weighed her down until she feels like she couldn’t move again in this lifetime. She’s been through this before but every year it gets a little tougher to deal with. This year has been particularly trying for some reason. Maybe its because she isn’t a spring chicken any more, or maybe it’s because it really is worse than usual. Anyway she needs to sit quietly, breath shallowly, and think about swimming across the Yellowstone river about a hundred times. Real slow. In fact she might just stop in the middle, it’s shallow there and take a nap. That would be good.

Bears, even Rosie, do not use calendars. They don’t know that there’s only a few more days maybe a long week or so and this will be all over. It will start to cool down, the trees will start to turn and they’ll have to get busy eating Miller Moths, grubs, grass and roadkill to fatten up. The mornings will be crisp and cool. An occasional early frost will rime the grass along the river banks and there’s the den to think about. Right now though that might as well be in the next century. It’s hot now. She may take a nap, and those kids better not come down if they know what’s good for them. Maybe it’ll be cooler tonight.

Big Red Bears Little White Grubs

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RedBear6920click to enlarge

Bears will do some pretty disgusting stuff. Especially big red bears who have an audience. When a bear is sighted in Yellowstone there is a signal sent out that when viewed from above looks like one of those old movie shots of an atomic explosion. The one where there is a ever-growing circle of dust and debris and destruction that heads out in all directions, faster and faster. Trees fall down, houses come apart and there is chaos of the supreme kind. That’s what its like when someone yells bear.

If there is a bear sighted on the Madison for instance people clear up in the Lamar valley eighty miles away will know about it in moments and break every known speed limit to get there before the bear is gone. Soon of course every human in Yellowstone is at the scene yelling, pointing, trying to sneak closer to get a better view, shooting their flash off when they’re several hundred yards away, arguing with the rangers and generally causing severe damage to interspecies cooperation.

Some bears simply can not handle that kind of craziness and haul their large furry butts off into the trees, but some bears relish the attention, and some like this big red one who is actually called a cinnamon bear because it sounds more scientific than just saying red, will stick around and put on a show. Not like walking on giant beach balls or wearing pointy party hats, that kind of stuff but everyday bear stuff.  Checking things out, sniffing tree branches which is kind of like reading the newspaper for them, flipping over rocks to see what’s under there, posing to show off how butch it is, and ripping open logs to find grubs. Grubs of course are the disgusting part, but bears like them. They like to eat them actually and consider it a great success when they tear open a log and find what they constantly seek, grub heaven.

To those unaccustomed to eating grubs this seems to be gross. And the more of those fatty, juicy, pop in your mouth treats the bear eats the grosser it is. And if the bear then chews with his mouth open that is like totally gross and usually sends the weaker stomachs staggering back to the mini-van. Of course, bears know this and they love it. If they can pack several dozen grubs into their mouth and then face the crowd, chewing with their mouth open they’re ecstatic. Kids love it too, if it grosses the Geezoids out that makes the whole trip. There will be endless miles where they’ll be reviewing just how gross it was in exacting detail and wasn’t it cool that it made mom sick. The bear will probably being doing the same thing when it gets down to the old Missing Tourist pub that night and the stories start.

I was going to photograph the open mouth chewing part for the blog but it was just too gross. As much as I like to bring realism to the stories that appear on this page we do have some standards here. But if you kids out there want to send in five dollars in plain unmarked bills I’d be happy to send you some of the out-takes. Just put ‘Gross out Grubs’ in the subject line.

Disclaimer: NO one between the age of 6 mos. and 111 may order unless a signed notarized affidavit from the ‘Standards of Decency Committee’ in your community accompanies your order. No exceptions.