Shoo Bear

Since moving to FairyLand, I’ve consistently been told how shy black bears are, how they avoid human contact. My first bear encounter led me to believe it. My last was a different story.

I’ve come up with a new ploy to deter bears and other wildlife from getting into my garbage. Apart from taking it to the dump more frequently, I’ve also bungee corded the heck out of the poor chewed-up can. I’ve also tied it to my fence just outside my bedroom window. The reasoning for this is two-fold. 1—that the smell will encourage me to take it to the dump more regularly and 2—the motion light right there will discourage the shy bears and wildlife from digging in.

A couple of weeks ago, it finally cooled down enough to leave my windows open. About 4am my cat started sprinting back and forth from one of my bedroom windows, to my bed, across my head to stare out the other window. I subsequently woke up and noticed the motion light was on. I got out of bed, peered out my window and noticed a 400 lb (appx—I didn’t bust out the scale) black bear dining casually on my trash.

What did I do next you might ask? What would you do? I woke up my husband.

“Matt! Wake up! There’s a bear in the garbage!”

We’ve been told, “If you see a bear, just make yourself seem large and talk to it sternly like you would a dog and tell it to go away.”

Alright. “Hey! Go away bear! Shoo!”

The bear paused his dinner of dirty diapers and cat poop, slowly turned his head to look at me, turned back to the diapers and continued with his meal.

So Matt of course went to the kitchen and grabbed a pan, took it to the window and banged on it. He got a similar reaction.

I suddenly remembered that my children were in there beds, soundly asleep with the windows open. Recalling vague stories of bears eating children in their sleep, I ran in and closed their windows. This gave me another brilliant idea.

I ran to the front door, opened it and slammed it shut, then flashed the porch lights. I ran back to my window, slammed it shut a couple of times. Bear still eyeball deep in trash.

“What do we do?”

“Well, I don’t think we ought to go out there and clean up the trash just yet. Go back to sleep.”

Yeah, right.

I laid back down, my head propped up, staring at the bear. Then he casually sauntered away. After a few moments, the motion light turned off and I laid my head back down, attempting to sleep. Alas, my reprieve was short-lived. A few moments later, our friend returned for seconds.

Eventually he left and eventually I got back to sleep. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to grab a camera instead of a pan. Oh well, next time. I’m thinking of leaving out bowls of ripe berries. Just kidding, my trash now resides in my shed.