 |
| Mara...she's camera shy...NOT! |
On Friday Andrea and Connor showed up and cousin Stephanie and her two...Anthony and Mara arrived too...and spent the night. Needless to say the kids were wound up and didn't get the sleep they needed, neither did their Mamas as far as that goes. The kids spent yesterday morning outside running around, exploring, playing in the dirt and it was getting hot. As the morning progressed the kids were wilting so instead of staying into the afternoon before heading home the Moms decided to head home early and hope the tired munchkins slept on the drive. Wow...it felt like the aftermath of a huge storm...haha.
 |
| Steph & Anthony |
After two weeks of company we were alone...so we set the house to rights and then spent the rest of the afternoon resting inside with the a/c on...I needed to be cool and chill. Later I had a lovely soak in my large garden tub in our redecorated bathroom for the first time since finishing it. While relaxing I watched the sun set on the ponderosa pines...ahhhhh. We were in bed by 9:30, exhausted.
 |
| Anthony |
Suddenly a crash woke us up...the sound came from the shed and we knew instantly that the bear was back...it was 12:30...so much for extra sleep. Larry shined the flashlight from the front door and could see the bear had gotten the door of the shed open and was into the garbage, had tipped it over. Larry opening the door and shining the light on it scared it and he lost sight of it. I was looking out the bedroom window and I couldn't see it but I could hear it. Bears make a very distinct chuffing/grunting noise and that is what it was doing and we then heard something going up the pine trees. Larry waited a bit and then walked out to get the garbage contained and pull it out in front of the shed and leave it where if the bear showed back up the motion light would go on and hopefully scare it away.
I could hear something still up in the tree and more chuffing so we knew it was still up on the hill, we spotted it with the flashlight and it was just hanging around the base of a tree and by then we figured out that there was a baby or babies and it/they were up the tree and Mama wasn't going anywhere. I got the camera, changed the settings and hoped to get a picture. The flashlight was pretty dim and didn't really illuminate the bear much, but I could see it wasn't too concerned about us. Larry had gone out to the truck to get his spotlight...which has to be plugged into the truck so though the light shined very brightly up the hill so I could see better, Larry couldn't see a thing with the light shining on two layers of deer fence on the garden.
I wish you all could have seen it. From the first angle that Larry was shining the spotlight the big pine tree cast a shadow over the bear but I could see one paw. She had sat down on her butt and was scratching and one back paw caught the light and appeared to be waving to us back and forth, back and forth. Funny! She skootched around, scratched some more and then got comfy...she was guarding the babe until it came down from the tree. I am guessing that until we left she didn't give it the all clear. When I took the first picture she apparently didn't like the flash because she hissed at me...uh-oh...but didn't seem the least concerned with the next two shots I got. I couldn't see anything in the display on the back of the camera so didn't think the pictures turned out. On the computer I was able to brighten them up so we could see the bear pretty well.
 |
| This is a really bad picture but I wanted you to see the shadow the spotlight cast that she "waved" to us from. |
After a bit we decided to give up on bear watching...we were tired and we half expected to get woke up again, but neither one of us heard anything more and in the morning found the garbage can as Larry left it. This morning we could see how she just ripped the door open from the bottom and broke off the piece of wood that holds it closed.
Today we visited on the phone and just puttered around. It was very breezy this morning but eventually warmed up. A friend gave us a tip for bear prevention and as tonight is garbage night we'll see if it works for our bear. They use straight ammonia on their can...so we'll keep you posted.
I am amazed at the nature we see here on a daily basis...far more than I ever expected. We are on the edge of a lot of wild land but it is traversed with the highway, hiking trails, the rock quarry and the river so for some reason I just didn't expect all this entertainment! So lucky and so entertaining!
 |
| Done scratching and getting settled down. |
No comments:
Post a Comment