Backyard Bear

**Double click on the photo to enlarge it - you can see the bear's face better**

A few days ago I put Louise to bed early and went back outside to tidy up the patio. I had just put away the kiddie pool and was heading back inside when something told me to just be still. There were a couple of birds making noises at each other to my left, and I watched them for a few minutes. Then I heard another sound to my right. I looked into the hemlocks not 20 feet away and saw four great big bear legs walking along the edge of our yard.

I couldn't tell if the bear was on our side of the fence or on Carolyn's side, so I got off the patio and into the house in a hurry. I grabbed my camera and tiptoed back out through the carport. I guess I wasn't very quiet because I heard my neighbor Carolyn call over. I yelled back "It's a bear!" She hollered back that she knew that, and that the bear was trapped in her fenced in backyard. I wandered over less afraid knowing that there was a fence between us and Ursa Major.

Carolyn filled me in: the bear had wandered into her yard and had been just hanging out for most of the evening. I grabbed a quick snapshot of the bear through the safety of the fence. Then we opened the gate and ran back into our houses. I have a healthy fear of bears and this one was a big one, too.

After a while we wandered out and watched as the bear slowly worked his way to a neighbor's carport. There the bear helped himself to a buffet of garbage in the neighbor's pick-up truck. More neighbors joined us as we watched in awe as the bear moved slowly in and out of the truck, stopping to have a sip of water from their kiddie pool now and again. At one point he banged on something loudly. I couldn't see what it was because it was starting to get dark, but it was loud. The folks inside the house eventually figured out there was a bear in their carport. Maybe it was the loud bang that tipped them off or maybe it was the small group of neighbors staring, pointing, and snapping photos in their direction. They scared off the bear, which slowly lumbered across the street and up the road. What a creature.