Night Time Visitor

In this post you begged for me not to post pictures of this... but at least it isn't my own poop... This is the evidence of our nightly visitor. It is that time of year when we have bears around here - eating the corn from the ranch by day and the plums from our orchard by night. You can see evidence of this if you look closely at the second picture. Poop on the left is plum poop. Poop on the right is hard to see because it is yellow corn poop. Just what you wanted to know, I know!

We are all just a little bit freaked this year. The bears (there are 2 that have been sighted - a large 500lb one and a smaller 300lb one) don't usually come so close to our house. But the first picture of poop is under the swing and there is usually a new one there every morning. And the second is on the path by the chicken coop with new deposits made a couple times a week. It all gets shovelled up and put in my compost...

But yes, we are a bit freaked. I make Dean go close up the coop each night because he can run faster and the other night, while going out to the van in the dark, I got that old shiver and jerkily ran and fumbled with the door, wondering what I was afraid of? The bear to put his paw on my shoulder while I am fumbling with the door? (only a few feet from my front door) Another time, I heard him (or her) crashing through the brush outside my bedroom window. I heard him (or her) grunt. Dean and I turned off the lights and shone flashlights out the window in hopes of seeing our visitor... but so far, all we have seen are those piles of poop in our yard...