Bear

I may have mentioned that I am not a people person. I am, however, an animal person. Miss Bella is still my favorite neighbor. (She says "hi".) 

We have been blessed with some pretty interesting neighbors over the years. One of my favorites was from 2 houses ago. We lived in a house that backed up to some state owned forest and part of a horse pasture. Naturally, we adopted the horses and disregarded the 'trespassing on state land punishable by death' signs. I do what I want.  

One day, we walked out to the area between the pasture fence and the woods. The horses spotted us and started heading up the hill. As they got closer, they slowed down, and finally stopped walking. We could tell they wanted to come over, but something was definitely making them nervous. I noticed a huge hole under the fence a couple of feet down from us. Horses aren't known to be great diggers, and our resident gopher tortoise's holes aren't usually large enough to accommodate a human, so I decided it was either loose dogs or possibly a yeti. Since it was 89 degrees out, the yeti was unlikely, and I hadn't heard any dogs, so I decided to look around.  After giving the kids the "sit, stay" command, I headed into the woods.  (Yes, it has been brought to my attention that I am that dumb white girl in the horror movie who gets killed in the first 5 minutes because she has to go investigating the weird noise.) 

I got a about a dozen feet inside the tree line when I heard a noise above me. I looked up and saw a big dark thing. I wandered around the tree and finally discovered the big dark thing had a face. It was a very handsome bear! (A mostly harmless black bear, not a human eating death machine bear.) 

Already well on my way to Mother of the Year, I did what any good parent would do. I sent the kids back to the house...for my camera! They returned with it, and I instructed them to go back inside and hide under the bed, mostly because I thought it would be funny. They went in and made cookies, completely disregarding my orders. Hard to get mad when there are cookies, though.

So, Little Bear and I spent quite a bit of time together. He didn't seem to care too much about me, but I opted to keep my distance. After all, I was in his house and didn't want to be rude. 

A couple of my neighbors thought shooting it was the thing to do, so I called the state biologist and told on them. She said there were in fact 5 bears in our vicinity, and the wooded areas surrounding our little community were perfect for them. I asked if I could shoot anyone who threatened a bear. She said that technically she couldn't stop me (and would actually applaud), but killing someone for threatening a 300 lb bear probably wasn't going to go over well with a jury. I suggested a little kneecapping. (Found out later that a little kneecapping was like being a little pregnant. Do or do not, there is no "little".) 

Anyway, apart from the being the occasional litter bug, the bear mostly just hung out in the woods. He used our side yard as his point of entry, so whenever he took a full trash bag, he usually emptied it out on our lawn. Based on my experiences cleaning up after him, our bear loved grapes and nuts, but hated onions, garlic, and anything with golden arches. We were advised to put our trash out the morning of trash day, but some of my neighbors insisted on doing it the night before. One chap decided to thwart the bear's attempt by wedging his trash between the garage door and the car. He ended up with a dent in his hood shaped like a bear's bottom and trash everywhere. Some people just don't get it. 

At the end of the day, the horses stopped freaking out and ate the apple slices I had, the bear sort of snored/ snorted, and I went back inside, ate cookies, and texted Mr. Pet Police about getting a real life teddy bear. (He said no. Meanie!) 

This little guy stopped by our yard a couple of weeks before we left the bear house. He was actually adorable. I escorted him (at a safe distance) across the golf course until we met up with a firefighter who offered to walk our friend the rest of the way. He was headed to a pond on the other side of the 7th hole. You know, because gators also do what they want, even when they aren't real big.