Papa Bear Returns

My dog, Lucy, woke me at 2:30 a.m. Monday night. She ran to the living room, barking, so I got up, flipped on the yard lights, and saw a big black bear on my back porch! He had  tipped over the large wooden bin where I store birdseed and was trying to get the lid off.

   When I rapped on the window, the bear turned and looked in at me. I rapped again, and he ambled down the porch steps. Next he removed both my bird feeders from their posts, yanked them open, and ate the seed. He also tipped over the bird bath. Then he went to the front side of the house where he tipped over the other bird bath and removed that bird feeder!

   While he was in front, I went out to the back porch and brought my birdseed bin indoors. There are teeth marks on the lid. I watched Papa Bear for an hour before he finally plodded away into the woods.

    My son-in-law, Kevin, came the next day and repaired all the bird feeders and reinstalled them. Papa Bear did not return last night.  It was exciting to see him so close and it was fun to watch him work at getting the seed, but I am not eager to have him up on my porch again.

    I’ve already written about bears in The Hideout but I still made some notes about this experience and put them in my Ideas Box.

    I had a check this week for photocopies of my work made in other countries. For this accounting period, my writing was photocopied in Spain, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Quebec, and some places listed merely as “overseas.”