Live large * Climb beyond your limitations * When life gets hairy grin and bear it * eat well * Live with the seasons * Take a good long nap * Look after your honey!

Spring is definitely here! The warm weather has arrived and with it the bears.  Bruno’s return was later than usual this year and there were many tense moments. Other regulars made their appearance and still no sign of our “special” boy! We were beginning to fear the worst and then through the woods came our big fat, pig bear!! What excitement!! He looks healthy and refreshed after his long winter’s sleep. He doesn’t appear to have been affected too much by his gun shots wounds from last year. Soon he will be leaving on his “walk of love”, hopefully finding some pretty girls to produce many more baby Bruno’s. We’ll, of course miss him for those few months but a boy bear’s got to do what a boy bear’s got to do!!  Unfortunately there are no new cubs for our old girl Bonnie this year. She seems to have been affected a lot more by her gun shots than the boys, she is looking pretty tatty! No sign of Knock and her three yearlings yet, we still hope she will return. Maybe when the boys leave the area?

With the start of spring comes the maintenance. Oh my, living in the woods has its down side. Once the snow melted, all the broken branches, fallen trees and leaves, leaves and more leaves were exposed. Much of our time has been spent starting on clean up but thankfully we’ve had pretty weather to do it. We’ve started washing and staining the decks so slowly but surely things are returning to normal.

Our old dog, Squib is now 22 years old!! She is starting to show her age. Some days she runs around like a puppy chasing Scuddy, the male JR but other days she’s quite content just passing the day sleeping in her basket. Her eyesight is starting to deteriorate and her hearing is limited but apart from that she’s still quite frisky. She still rules the house and has no qualms about letting the bears know she doesn’t really like them.

We look forward to welcoming everyone to our “little piece of Heaven”.  Keep an eye on special events, trains to ride, festivals to attend, mountains to climb, rivers to swim, so much to do! Start your day with a hearty Wildernest breakfast and end your day enjoying the spectacular views, the wildlife, a drink and a delicious dinner. A warm West Virginia welcome awaits you!

We spent a wonderful couple of weeks in sunny South Africa, visited with family and friends and “the icing on the cake” shared with our youngest son and his beautiful bride, one of the most beautiful weddings we have ever attended. That’s our final wedding … now we can just sit back, relax and wait for more beautiful grand babies!!  Aging certainly comes with many benefits!

On our return from SA with many African crafts in hand, we spent the first couple of weeks redecorating the living room and dining room. The living room is now all “African”, like Africa,  giving it a warm and inviting glow. We have replaced the, to me, always hated dining room furniture with beautiful new tables and chairs. Our dining room theme remains our “first” love the birds and bears!!  We look forward to serving many more, new recipe, delicious meals in this revamped  room. We ate in many restaurants in SA and have returned home with new recipes, new ideas and a renewed love for what we do. If you are a seafood lover, we look forward to sharing with you our “Seafood skillet” with loaded garlic or peri peri prawns, calamari rings and other seafood delights. We ate so much escargot, calamari rings and prawns we just have to add these to our many favored dishes. Of course these new meals would not be complete without a glass of good South African wine or one of our many beer selections!!

The bears are still in hibernation and we doubt we’ll see them until mid March. No self-respecting bear would leave his warm bed in this cold, snowy weather!  Hopefully Bonnie will return in May with her newest litter of little terrors. We wonder, if once again, she has had 3 cubs. Every alternate year she has returned to the Inn with 3 new babies in tow!  We are excited to see Knock and her year old fluffy bundles of joy. We can just foresee a coming year of lots of fun with these 3  little kids. Once Knock throws them out in the Summer we just know they’ll spend lots of time with “Grandma and Grandpa”!! J As always our beloved Bruno will be the most welcomed of all. I miss his regular visits and hope it won’t be too long before his return. As each bear emerges from den we will be sure to update this site!

We hope to welcome our very many returning guests again this year and hope to meet many new guests who like the “old” ones will become part of the Wildernest family and keep returning to our Little piece of Heaven up here in the mountains.