A time to sleep

Today is day 31 of the Ultimate Blogging Challenge and of Inktober. Today’s prompt is landmark.

The bears had walked up the mountain, not to the summit, but to a den on the side of the mountain. In that den, they would sleep. They always recognized that den because, inside, there was a wood carving, left some time ago by a human. The image that was carved in wood was of a bird. It was their landmark. Bearnacle Bear noticed that there were smaller versions of the wood carving. He picked one up and carried it to his sleeping spot. He and the other bears were very tired. The winds were howling, the air had grown colder, and the ground was getting hard.

It was time to sleep, to hibernate. And so, the bears did fall asleep, quietly and gently.

Post script

Today is the last day of both Inktober and the Ultimate Blogging Challenge. I am so grateful to everyone who has read the story daily, from start to finish. It has truly been a journey for me. My original goal was just to finish Inktober. This was my third year participating in Inktober but, until this year, I never finished it.

This time, I did finish Inktober. And I wrote a continuous story for the entire month, which is also new for me. Which is why I have come to the realization that this section of the story is not a complete story on its own but is part of a much bigger story of the life and adventures of Bearnacle Bear. In other words, this is the start of a novel!!! Stay tuned for future stories about Bearnacle. Eventually, there will be a novel for me to share and advertise and do whatever people do when they write novels…

For now, I’m switching gears to write a Christmas/New Year’s newsletter, design holiday cards and to plan for an art show that I’m going to have at the Grand Island Memorial Library during the month of December!!! Thank you so much for reading my story. I will be posting once to twice a week until January, when I participate in the next Ultimate Blogging Challenge.