Bear Sighting

Last night someone at the end of our driveway started honking their horn. I yelled at Terry as I just assumed it was some buddy of his suddenly arriving. Turns out we didn't know them at all. It was just a good soul letting us know a bear had just wandered onto our property.

A beautiful black bear was up by our outhouse sniffing around. He was right where I usually hide our garbage until we can make it to the landfill. Luckily there was nothing there at the moment. The bear stopped and stared at us as we looked out the front door. Terry got a good shot of him.........with the camera. In the picture it is just a black blot but it really was a cute bear. Cute because I was standing inside the cottage and he was outside.

After a minute or two the bear just lumbered away back up to road. Then he was gone.

Terry headed over to the neighbours to warn them about our sighting. I thought it was probably a good idea to keep all pets in as they might make a good snack for the bear. I was hoping the bear didn't find anything to eat in our area as he might make the woods around our cottage a permanent home.

Matt next door........pretty far next door......not like in the city.................told Terry the bears have been seen all over the place this year. Apparently electric fencing was recently installed around the dump and the bears can no longer access their all you can eat buffet at the landfill site.

One of our chores each week is to go to the land fill site. This was never really a chore as it served two recreational purposes. One, to check out the new merchandise at the cottage mall. (People who have unwanted but perfectly good items leave them in a shed for anyone who would like to take them). The other fun thing was to check out the bears. It was like being at the zoo but better. You got to see wild bears in action but from a safe distance.

With the bears banned from the landfill site it takes away one of my favourite cottage outings and it makes me worried about the bears breaking into my cottage to get at some forgotten food left behind.

Terry just got back from visiting neighbours on the other side of the lake. He was telling them about our bear sighting. Terry was told the electric fencing was keeping the larger bears out but the baby bears have been able to climb trees high enough to go over the fencing and still get into the dump. Some bears have also been clever enough to pry the bottom of the fencing with wood and prop it up so they can still get in.

No matter how clever man is, when a bear wants to eat .................he is going to eat!