Chasing the Bear!

I opened the window slowly. I thought the strange noises outside were the wind, but after looking out at our wind sock, I knew it was flat calm out. My heart was pounding hard now! I could hear loud CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH sounds, like somebody chewing through soda cans. And that is exactly what it was...only it was a BEAR in my yard doing it. I looked out the window, and could only see a dark dark lump of bear. It was 2 am, but if it was daylight I would have seen this:

Only with more yogurt, green beans, and watermelon rinds on his face.

A large Alaskan brown bear! Eating my garbage in the yard. The nerve!

Since my husband was not home to protect our home and hearth, it was up to me. Oh gosh. I don't shoot anything but pictures. Everyone knows that! I hoped it was not after our bunnies, or our horses, or our little dog in the outside kennel. I knew I had to do something to scare it away fast.

So, I ran to the garage and jumped in the van. I opened the garage door and backed the van out. The bear moved away a little but not far. I gunned the van loudly and headed straight for the bear. It whirled around and dove into the dark woods, like a bullet bear. I drove around our circle drive about three more times, then I drove down to our outside kennel. Our Terrier Pluto was going just about nuts, barking. He was beside himself! I drove as close as I could to the kennel, although I knew the bear was probably long gone. But, there was a possibility that she had cubs, and if they were still near, she would be close by and quite ticked off. A bad combination for me, out alone in the dark trying to get my poor dog.

I was careful as I jumped out and grabbed Pluto by the collar, and started to put him into the van to drive him back up to the house. But the maniac pulled loose and ran off into the dark, freaking out and racing as fast as he could go. I went back to the house, parked the van, and then tried to call him back to the house. But he was gone. I called and called him. I was pretty worried about the little dummy, so I stayed up all night until he finally came home.

The next morning, I had this

and this

and this

and this

to deal with. It was such a MESS. That bad bear!

Ok, so he was bad, and I was mad, and it was a mess, but hey...he was hungry....he was wandering by, he didn't know it belonged to anybody, and he didn't mean to cause a problem, and he was probably really sorry about the whole thing. Right?

WRONG! Because then he came back! And did the whole thing over again. Only this time my husband was home and we didn't know about the bear until the next morning. We had the whole mess all over again. Darn bear.

Measuring the tracks to see how big he is

Its an ancient Indian trick, using a dollar bill to figure out how big the bear is by his tracks. Oh wait...Indians didn't have bills?! Ok, so its my husband's trick. (on a side note, I just noticed that's a twenty, and can I have that Honey?) In any case, my husband, who is a hunting guide, figured the bear to be about 8 feet. Pretty big party crasher. A decent size for a backyard brown bear.

Here are a few more of his or her tracks

No more Mr. Nice Guy. This bear is a problem. It will be back. With so many bear attacks happening this year, we have to discourage this guy from coming around. We don't want to shoot it, if we can help it. So Michael decided on a great idea, and put up an electric fence around the whole garbage area. Then we moved any and all temptations, such as the barrel of dog food, inside the electric fenced area. So there, Bear.

That night I stayed up all night to watch the bear get his. But he didn't come back that night. Or any night yet. Phew.