Saturday, October 15, 2011

Guess who came to dinner

Picture this on your kitchen table!
Because of our severe drought this summer, it's been a horrible year for wildlife having to encroach into urban areas searching for food.  I suspect that the lucky ones (meaning the ones that are tranquilized and relocated, versus killed) don't always have such a great story to tell once they find themselves suddenly plopped down in a new territory, either.  It's a sad scene, all around.  Tales of bears and coyotes killing chickens and pets abound this summer, and no trash can shall go unturned.

This past week, our two dogs have been on hyper alert during the night, barking wildly when they can smell or hear coyotes or bears in the yard.  I'm sure it's as frustrating for them as it is for us.  They want to protect, we want to sleep.  After the first two nights, I stopped catapulting out of bed in hope of seeing a bear out the window.  I'm SO over it.  Until tonight, that is.

After we happily finished watching Part II of the Martin Scorsese documentary on George Harrison, I walked Ani to the door, wishing her a good night's sleep.  Suddenly she started yelling for me...I stepped outside, and from our porch, we could see through the screen door into her room.  There it was, ursus americanus, in living color...climbing around on her kitchen table looking for snacks.

What ensued was probably something that should have been filmed.  Ani and I grabbed pans and utensils to bang on them with.  Roger grabbed an air horn and a monster spotlight.  Together we marched up to her room, unsure of our plan, but knowing we had to do something (it was after 9:00 p.m., and since the sheriff's department is probably off duty on a weekend night or wouldn't respond anyway, what to do??).  As we banged on our kettles, Roger honked the horn and pushed the screen door open with a broom.  After a few moments, we crept up and peeked inside; it turned out it had come and gone through a window that it had accessed by climbing up on the roof of the dye studio.  Our next concern was finding Ani's sweet little cat, Badger Baby...who was hiding in the bathroom sink.  Total loss appears to be a bowl of cat food.  Seems like we caught it early in its exploration.

Meanwhile, back at the horn...Roger was shining the light and blasting the horn around the other side of the building.  It turned out the bear was still hanging out on the roof, so he "guided" it with the light and watched as it took off across the yard and down into one of the big arroyos.  Suddenly I got creeped out...we were all three outside, not knowing who else might be around.  Have I mentioned how dark it is up here at night without a full moon? 

So that's our story, and I'm sticking to it.  Our poor dogs...they missed all the excitement!

5 comments:

Robyn said...

Yikes!! Be CAREFUL! It doesn't sound so good to be standing around with a hungry bear.

Sassafras and Winterberry said...

Scary! You guys are all kinds of brave. I'm not sure I could go sleep in that room again! Be careful out there!

Unknown said...

how difficult! what can you do now?

minicoop said...

OMG!! Hahahaha!! the visual of all that is scary but sooo funny. Especially Roger with the horn & light....Bob would be doing the exact same thing! I would be passed out. Makes moldy coffee filters & a surprise visitor in the Encinitas basement not so frightening :0)

RuthieJ said...

OMG Martie! That's a whole lot more excitement than anyone needs! Glad the bear took the hint and left without any harm to people or pets!