dumps and bears

 I have to inquire about this dump thing.  To me and to others in the google universe a landfill is a dump, and vice versa.  There was a ton of information about landfills in the google world, more than I want to get into this morning, the last morning of Indian Summer.

So what is a dump in upper Michigan?  Is it a place where the local garbage trucks end their route? I am guessing it was just a big pile of garbage open to god's eyes and to bears' also, and a transfer station would be a dump protected from god's eyes and bears' also.  And when that gets filled up it goes to a landfill.

Chicago has four landfills each over a hundred miles from the city, some recycle and some incinerate and not sure what the others do because there is a ton of information and Indian summer is fast fading away, into the dump of history.

I collect my garbage in plastic grocery bags inserted into plastic pails, not the height of house beautiful but the garbage does not complain.  When the bag is full I take it down the hallway and toss it down a chute.  I can hear it bounce a couple times as I make my way back home and then two doors down, I wait for it, there is that distant thud.  The garbage is out of my hands.

I have heard, but have not gone to the effort of seeing it, that there is a big, oh I guess we call them dumpsters, at the end of the fall, and at some point it must become full and some garbage truck empties it and hauls it away 100 miles to one of our landfills.  I should know more about this, but I don't know when I will get around to it.

 They visit them in late winter and check out the cubs while Mama is asleep.  

Wait a minute, what are the cubs doing with mama in late winter?  Don't they give birth in the spring and the cubs by fall are on their own?  Its says it takes them four to eight years to mature so maybe the cubs hibernate with Mom?

Then there is this Female bears give birth during the hibernation period, and are roused when doing so.

Whoa mama, so she is wakened by giving birth?  Wow, so she has to not only make up for her loss over the winter, she must provide fodder for her cubs to grow strong and healthy too.  Oh she must be ravenous.

Female bears generally spend either 1.5 or 2.5 years with their young. In many ways, the pressures of bear life favor the shorter option — a mother with cubs cannot mate, so the more time she spends with each litter, the fewer offspring she'll have over her lifetime.

Well very well then, I have learned a lot about bears this morning.