Living in the country is great....wonderful to drive 2 hours home from a major city in major traffic and just be away from it all....except the "all" in my woods is really getting annoying and took advantage of my stupid human mistake. I have pretty much bear proofed by place. Much to the disappointment of the numerous birds I used to feed regularly. Well, my AC has been down for a couple weeks. Tech came MON and installed the heat pump...but the air handler he received was not the one he ordered, and he couldn't make it fit....so no AC until this coming MON.....luckily it has been pleasant at night and we have all the windows open for a ice air flow. I must say I love hearing the crickets, katydids and cicadas as I fall into slumber. Well, as some of you know I have posted about the incredible uptick in bears this past fall, spring and the unusual frequent summer activity. Two nights ago I forgot to close the sliding glass door from kitchen to top deck.....bird feeder, empty, has been sitting on the kitchen table for a couple weeks. We were putting them out just at day time..but bears started coming at day time. We started putting them out only when we were home...but the bears didn't care and climbed the deck with us only several feet away. So the feeders will wait for winter. Anyhow, an empty feeder was on the kitchen table, along with an empty humming bird feeder. Hadn't put them away yet.
I awoke to what I thought was my 0300ish potty call.....as I was getting up I heard something that sounded like the screen door being pushed against. I sat on the bed, and sure enough I heard the unmistakable sound of the sliding screen door being opened, the the sound of kitchen chair being moved, and CRASH the sound of heavy metal hitting the floor (Feeder is large, metal and holds 15lbs of seed). I grabbed the bedside pistol with attached TLR light and made my way down the hall as I heard the sound of the metal feeder being pushed around....I started yelling GO AWAY BEAR as loud as I could, and when I navigated the corner with the best of my SRT trained ability these days, which isn't too smooth, The feeder was on the upper deck and I heard yogi get over the gate and sliding down the hand rail......by the time I got to end of deck and put light down below bear was already on septic sand mound staring up at me.....looking and sounding offended....
My mistake, bears will do what bears do and they have no idea they are taking advantage of a stupid humans mistake.....sliding glass door to upper deck has been closed since....Wife makes sure of it......
