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Saturday, May 10, 2014

A Night Time Visitor

Friday, May 16

Startled out of a deep sleep at 2:30 this morning by Molly’s barking. And this was no ordinary barking. I had never heard her this excited before. Suspecting that something big was about to happen, I hurried to get out of bed, almost losing my footing on the ladder. Molly was going mad at the large window of the addition. As I passed the cupboard, I grabbed the flashlight and rushed to the window. When I looked outside the only evidence that anything was amiss was that the large plastic bin which had contained two large bags of bird seed had been flipped over. Both bags had been ripped open and the seed scattered every which way. Given the weight of those bags I immediately knew there is only one animal which could have managed to flip that bin over and even though I didn’t see it, I knew that I’d had a visit from a bear. It’s also the only thing that would explain Molly’s reaction. I decided to venture outside and salvage what I could of the bird seed by placing it back in the bin. Don’t mind admitting that I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea at the time. For all I knew the bear was hiding out in the nearby clump of cedars waiting for things to calm down again and who new how it might react to my messing with its new-found food supply.

Back in bed, my adrenalin flowing, all kinds of scenarios began to run through my head. What if the bear hand’t been satisfied with just bird seed? What if it had caught scent of the other large bin in the screened-in porch which contained Molly’s food? From there it would have been a simple matter for the bear to break down the front door and enter my tiny little cabin leaving me with no means of escape. I have no idea how long I lie there, imagining all sorts of alternative endings to this little incident but I finally convinced myself that, just as Molly had succeeded in scaring the bear off at the back of the house, she surely would do the same should it return.

Found further evidence that our visitor had been a bear when Molly and I went for our morning walk. Just at the edge of the bush by the spring I found some fresh bear scat, bird seed and all. Mystery solved.

...


When I told Sean about the incident last night he said that he’d spotted a bear on my property the last two springs and wouldn’t be surprised if it had a den somewhere nearby.

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