Here there be Bears!

Okay, so I live in Iowa. Not much goes on here to tell you the truth. We have two pretty good football teams (Go 'Clones) and occationally I see a bobcat across the road from where I live but we have had some visitors to the state that have been getting some press of late.

Bears. Black bears coming up from the Ozarks in Missouri and black bears coming down from Minnesota. There have been six sighting this year and the latest one was only about twenty miles from where I live.

Now the problem that I have is that they are not a protected species in Iowa because, well, you don't need to protect something that doesn't live there. Right?

Right.

Anyway. We have the same problem with mountain lion (I have seen one of those in the state about ten years ago) in that they are not protected and god forbid we let any animal go where it wants.

I realize this is off the writing topic that I try to stick to in this post but it struck me as something I needed to get off my chest and most of the local hunters don't feel the same way about it as I do (I am a local hunter) so my ramblings would be falling on deaf ears.

Now to the writing. My children's novel "Big Chief's Gold" is actually going well when I find the opportunity to work on it. I have greatly expanded the narrative on the bones that I had laid out. The first four pages have blown up into thirteen pages and at that rate my little ninety page story will be about a 250 page book. I don't know if it will turn out like that or not but I am happy with the progress so far.