Bears and Earth Quakes

Today was interesting. I saw a beautiful black bear lope across the old gravel road  on my morning hike. He looked very healthy. I say he because the mother bears around here have cubs.

My life partner was hiking the other day and came near a mother with two cubs in a tree. He backed up and she seemed even more agitated, so he turned to notice a third cub right behind him. Because he does carry a firearm when he hikes he wasn't real alarmed. Further consideration caused him to buy serious bear spray and carry that as well. Neither one of us wants to hurt a mother bear with cubs or create any orphans in the woods.

We generally hike alone because I'm a morning person, and like hiking in the cool of the day, while he likes hiking early afternoon. This works for us.

While I was writing on my computer, the floor began to shake. I thought maybe the washing machine had a very unbalanced load, but wait, the washing machine was not running. Nothing was running. I paused my work and felt the chair also shaking. I thought then maybe a bear had crawled in under the house and was tearing up the floor. I stood up and it quit.
I've been through a couple earth quakes, small ones. But the east coast doesn't get earth quakes, not like this.

We turned on the news and found out sure enough, a 5.8 that jiggled about 22 different states.
Never a dull day in the mountains.