a99kitten's Musings

And I don’t mean in the markets! (but yes that too)

I let Smokey choose our route every morning. This morning, we went straight up my street on the way to the trails. First, we came across a wild puppy. Same puppy we met before – Chase. He 100% spaz. Watching the teenaged girl trying to wrangle him was pretty funny. He was off-leash and kept following us to play with Smokey so I stopped until she could go grab his leash.

Not 10 seconds after she got the leash on him, I see a large critter further up the street (I live on a giant slope up and he was at the very top.) At first I thought to myself “what a huge dog – where is his person?” He was just hanging out in the middle of the street. Then I saw another critter come out and the bigger critter bat him away. That’s when I realized it was a bear and coyote!

The teenaged girl freaked out a bit – mostly because she just realized that she had her out of control puppy off-leash not 30 seconds prior and what could have happened. She turned around and went home.

Of course I had to keep going! By now Smokey was pulling because he wanted to go take over this pack and make them his minions! But I kept him on short leash.

As we were getting closer, I see another coyote shoot out from a driveway and the bear swatted again. He was clearly not interested in sharing his booty. Then he moved across the street towards the bushes and trees and grabbed his garbage bag and went down into the bushes. And the coyotes followed. By the time I got up there, I saw the bear box that the garbage came from.

Little piece of wood across doors to keep out bears. LOL

Full time residents used to be able to put their garbage out in the AM of garbage day but any 2nd home owners or rentals HAD to have a bear box. This was so no garbage was left out very long to attract bears. Two problems with this 1) people want to have cute wooden ones that match their homes. Sure – they look much cuter than the metal ones. But thinking that a little wood door will keep out a bear if he smells something yummy is ridiculous. It’s now a building rule around here for all new houses built that you have to install a metal bear box no matter what – full time or part time resident. And if you replace your bear box, it has to be metal. Not sure the bears like those rules :) And 2) Bears are very smart and know the garbage day schedule. They get the locals AM garbage gifts before the garbage trucks come through.

Anyway, I could see the bear down in the bushes going through the garbage bag. He was BIG. And a light tannish brown color. Of course I wanted to hug him :) But I was obviously not going to try and get closer and he was clearly going to stay hidden in the bushes going through his treasure, so no pics :( Smokey and I watched him for a few minutes but then moved on. Didn’t need him thinking we wanted his booty and have him charge up the hill. He was only about 8 feet away and pretty darn sure he was faster than me!

But I saw him! And he was awesome!! Good way to start the day :) First bear I’ve seen since last 4th of July and only 3rd bear ever. Considering I live here full time now and hike EVERY DAY in the woods, that’s a low success rate in my opinion. I need to do better ;)