The Bear

It's true that when you get up in the morning, you really have no idea how your day is going to end up. And yesterday was no exception.

When I went to bed last night, I heard the dogs barking and figured that it must have been the oppossum or the raccoon that likes our cat food. I listened for a while, but when I heard the trashcan overturn, I angrilly went to the porch to see what was going on and shoo away whatever was causing this chaos. I flicked on the light and didn't see anything on the back porch. But when I leaned over the railing, the bear and I saw eye-to-eye, and I'm not sure who was more surprised. I called my husband.

After closing (and locking) all the doors (although not sure why locking was going to help), my husband and I spent the next few hours watching the bear take full bags of trash out of the can. He (still not sure about bear gender) took some of the full bags to the woods and then returned. The next bag he broke open, ate a few things and then looked as if he was taking a little nap. Did I mention that this is all outside of our bedroom window, about 8 feet down and about 24 inches from the house? You would think that the bear would have been afraid of us, with all of the talking, lights, TV going and the photo taking (although no photos are available because apparently they cannot be taken through a screen).

I admit, I really do not know how to deal with bears. The only ones I've ever seen were at the zoo. And that got me thinking, could the bear get in the house, do they have opposable thumbs like humans, could he open the door, etc. I should have learned more about wild animals, I should have watched more Animal Planet, what would the Crocodile Hunter do? After I spoke with the game warden (who thinks that a bear eating trash is amusing, not threatening) I felt a little better. Evidently bears are not really preditors, and at this time of the year they are just looking for a good meal.

So tonight the trash can goes inside, the cat food no longer stays on the porch and I'll try to remove the screen to get a better photo. I'm sure that he'll be back for seconds.

Wild Kingdom

Animals are an integral part of our farm plan. We're planning on having cows, goats, dogs, maybe a llama. The fun and unexpected part are the wild animals. Deer and groundhogs are pretty common in Virginia. What I didn't plan on are some animals that can be a bit of a nuisance.

Take mice, for example. When we moved to the farm. we decided to live in the single-wide trailer that came with the land while our house was being built. Evidently the mice had been taking shelter there before we moved in, so much cleaning had to be done to make the trailer people-safe. What I overlooked was the oven. Our first night in the trailer, I decided to bake cookies, so that when my husband came home and the kids were getting ready for dinner, the house would really smell like home. What they got instead, was "baked mouse", one of the worst smells that you can imagine. It was so bad that we had to take the oven outside and put it on the front deck. At that point I had to ask myself, how did I arrive at the point in my life where I was living in a trailer with an appliance on the front porch?

The wild turkeys are nice. Driving my children to school one day, down the driveway, I saw 2 adult turkeys crossings the road. When we stopped, something fluttered on one side of the driveway...it was 5 little turkeys. The entire family still hangs around the farm.

And finally the opossum. He/she has been eating my cat food, and I should add, is much larger than my cats. The opossum comes up on the porch at night, and when I flick the light on, we look directly into each other's eyes. He could definately win a staring contest. When I shoo him away or slam the door, he give's me the "give me a break" look and continues eating. Needless to say, I am now in search of a slighshot. 4/29/07 update - Forgot about the cat food, so he's back.

5/3/07 Ok, so now I'm open to suggestions on getting rid of the opossum before I invest in a large water-balloon slingshot that I saw advertised yesterday. I have received one recommendation for a product called "Shake Away" that consists of dried fox urine. That's right. (Of course now I'm a little pre-occupied with how in the world it's collected.)