Our dog Riley gave my husband a gift for Father’s Day. No, I didn’t buy my husband a new shirt and slap on a gift tag that said, “To Dad, from Riley.” The dog performed an action of love on his own Sunday morning. Riley sounded a 6 a.m. furiously-loud alert that a bear was at the trash can.
The gift? Since the bear was scared off before it could pull open the trash can (somewhat secured by bungee cords), my husband didn’t have to spend an hour picking up trash strewn from our driveway down into the woods like usual. Good dog, Riley.
We like living in the country with an assortment of critters who visit. Besides the bears, we have many deer. (I’m sure that neighbors driving by have heard my early-morning rants to the now-absent deer: “You have the whole forest to nibble on; why do you insist on eating the hostas?!”)
We see a fox on a regular basis, and we’ve had raccoons, possums, and wild turkeys. On a nature cam in our woods, we’ve also captured snapshots of coyote and an eagle. Pretty cool, huh?
So yes, we do enjoy the wildlife, even considering the loss of plants, extra poop to clean up, and the necessity of trash pick-up sometimes.
But our relationship with the bears turned ugly this spring. My husband had decided to try his hand at bee-keeping. The hives had been set up for a couple weeks. The bees had settled in and had begun foraging in the Rose of Sharon bush at the edge of a porch.
Unlike the adorable Winnie the Pooh, real bears don’t just gently dip a finger into a hive to grab a taste of honey. They smash the hives and eat the bees and the larvae as well. During a prolonged two week period of rain, two bears came and did just that. What bees they didn’t eat likely drowned.
Honestly, I’m struggling to explain the emotions we went through over this. The bees weren’t pets, but we still felt miserable over their loss. We were angry, frustrated, and having watched part of the scene unfold, felt distressed and helpless.
The bears were just being bears, responding to instinct. We weren’t going to harm them over this. But let’s just say if they attempt to get into the new hives, they’ll have a “shocking” experience. I hope the current is strong enough to cause the bears to look at each other and say, “The heck with this. Let’s go empty the trash can.”
To my readers: Have you had an experience with nature’s backyard creatures that you will share?
What I mostly want to say in response to this blog is, “Good boy, Riley!” See, he was meant to be a part of your lives for a reason, just one of many reasons!
I do have a cute story to share about a backyard creature which my brother Chris brought into our lives many years ago when we were young, a story which he talked about during his recent visit to our home on a trip from California where he lives now. A baby raccoon who lost his mother came to the attention of Chris, who brought him to our parents’ home to be cared for until he was old enough to fend for himself. Chris named him Mortimer. He became attached to Chris so much so that, when Chris attended a nearby dance, Mortimer, unknown to Chris, followed him to the dance. Upon hearing girls’ screams outside the building and his friends coming in and saying, “You have to go outside and get your raccoon,” he took Mortimer back home and put him in his enclosure before going back to the dance. Mortimer stayed with us until he was mature enough to live on his own. At that time, Chris let him slowly return to his natural life. In the not-too-distant future, an almost unbelievable event happened. A raccoon, obviously Mortimer, came up the wooded hill in front of our home and along with him were his family, a female and some babies! He just wanted to let Chris know he was okay and had a good life. Since then, I have read of similar experiences by others, with a raccoon in particular, which verified the fact this was truly Mortimer and not just some random raccoon. This is another instance showing it is possible for creatures with differences to coexist in harmony, including humans with all their differences, so please include this hope for the future of humanity in your prayers.
So let me get this straight: A raccoon is NOT a chick magnet for guys? But I love this story anyhow. I wonder if Mortimer and the Missus named one of their little ones “Chris” after your brother?