A Surprise Visitor Part 1

Last night our local news had a story about black bears. NH has quite a few of them,and apparently the town of Bethlehem,which is up in the White Mountains,is having quite a problem with them. The town has gone so far as to pass ordinances to try and control the problem. All dumpsters must have wildlife covers on them,people can't leave their trash out,and no one can feed the bears. The also had some video of a bear up on Rt 93 in Franconia Notch ( famous for the now gone Man In the Mountain).The bear was on the side of the road,surrounded by cars who had stopped so they could see this bear close up. Some of them were actually very close. A tourist commented,"It's nice that he's not afraid." Both Brian and I,as if on cue,said,"Oh no it's not!!!" For some reason,tourists love to try and get as close to black bears as they can and feed them. They think it's cute. Then they go back to their respective states and leave us with bears who will climb on people's porches,dig through their trash,and,in some instances,try to get into homes,because they now have a taste for people food and they are trying to find more. This is not a good thing. It's also not good when bears are no longer afraid of people. Many people think that because black bears don't have the reputation that brown or grizzly bears have,that they are harmless. Wrong! People can get chased,bitten,or killed by black bears. You never want to approach a bear,ever.

After the broadcast,Rick,Brian,and Zach all went out on the screen porch to watch the weather. We were in the middle of a severe thunderstorm watch as well as a tornado watch.(Tornadoes are not common in NH because of the hilly terrain,but last year one made a 50 mile path of destruction and came only a few miles from my house-in fact,they had posted a warning for my town as one area it might hit. One woman in Deerfield was killed.)I was on Facebook,when all of sudden Brian came rushing in with Zach right behind him. "There's a bear in the backyard! it looks like he is going after the turkeys. Zach ,you stay in the house," he said,and he ran downstairs to get his rifle. I ran to window after window to try and see the bear,but the garage blocked any possible view I could have,unless he walked towards the front yard,which he did not. It was nearing twilight,and it was thundering and raining,so he blended right into the tree line.I did see Rick,with his pistol,and Brian with his rifle,aiming at the tree line and walking slowly along it,maintaining a safe distance (our turkey cage is in the back corner of the yard in our tree line). I don't know what the law is in other states,but in NH,if a wild animal tries to eat your animals you can kill it,it doesn't matter if it's in season or not ( bear season starts Sept 1 here). After checking to make sure the bear was gone,the turkeys were safe and they examined the yard to see what if any damage he had done, they came in and told me what they figured out.

Apparently,the bear was already in the yard when they went on the porch. He had gone into our corn,knocked a couple of stalks down,and brought ears behind the woodpile where he proceeded to eat. The woodpile is tall,so they didn't see him at first. ( I took the photos this morning)

Apparently, after he had nibbled on this corn,he ran up the woodpile,and made his appearance. From the woodpile he ran in between the truck and the car,down the side of the garden,and back to the corn.

I have to bring Zach to Ethan's house for a sleep over, so I will continue this later.