The Bare Bear Necessities

Earlier this summer, my sister Becky, Mom, and I were playing a game late at night. With the windows wide open on the warm night, the sounds of summer were easily heard... traffic on the highway, frogs croaking, crickets singing, wind blowing through the trees, plastic breaking....

Wait a minute. Plastic breaking? Did we just hear plastic breaking?

After ignoring this sound for a few minutes, Mom finally got up and looked out the window to the backyard. In the pitch blackness, it must have taken a couple seconds for her eyes to focus with only the small yard light for illumination. Finally, she said, "Ummmmm..... there's a bear out here."

What???? A bear? We haven't seen a bear around here for years!

Becky and I went to the door quickly, in time to see a rather large black bear munching happily on sunflower seeds which were scattered on the ground after he'd completely destroyed the bird feeder. He dined for several minutes, then lazily got up and lumbered around in the driveway, coming over to the back steps to check things out.

We watched for several minutes before I went to get my camera. It wouldn't focus through the door and screen, so we decided to crack the door open a bit. Mr. Bear decided that was enough human contact for the day, and he high-tailed it outta there, back behind the garage toward the garden. The following day, I took some pictures of the evidence.

 The contraption formerly known as a bird feeder.

The flying saucer remains of said bird feeder.

Mr. Bear approached these steps, as we gazed out the window. Yes, he was probably less than 8 feet away from us.

This electric fence surrounds my dad's corn in the garden. Mr. Bear must have been running lickety-split and once he hit the wire and got a good shock, he tore up the wires pretty well!

A few raspberry plants met their demise in the run-in with Mr. Bear. Branches were broken off from the entangled wires.

My dad has a fairly large hand, so you can see how big Mr. Bear's paw is in comparison.