As I have said many times before, we live with LOTS of wildlife. Just this past weekend I walked to the mailbox only to find 8 deer grazing in the backyards of neighboring homes. Many people have told us stories of the bears that frequent the trail between my home and my neighbor's home. And it didn't take but one morning of finding trash scattered across my lawn to believe it...
So here's how the story goes.....
Saturday night, after a long day of friendly gossip and eery psychic readings, I was cleaning up the house before getting ready for bed. I walk into the garage to put something into the recycling bin when I hear a rustling about 4 feet from me, on the other side of the garage door. I could clearly make out the sound of someone opening the garbage container and it slamming down. It was 9:30 p.m. and I couldn't figure out why the kids would be taking anything outside - heck, they never do any other day!
After coming back inside and counting 1..2.. 3...4 children all inside, I knew something was up. So, (as my friend Dawn would say) in "white girl in a scary movie" fashion I walk towards the noise. I walked slowly outside and peek around the front of the house. I see nothing...but I hear the rustling and see the trash tipped over. I continue to move closer, thinking it's just a racoon. And then I see this head, about 4 ft in diameter (I'm in the moment.....everything looked bigger than it really was!) chomping on my leftovers!
As quick as my heart dropped into my stomach, I was in the house running around like a chicken with its head cut off yelling "holy sh**, the bear's in our trash!" (I repeated this at least a dozen times as I ran through the house). Then I come to my senses and think WHERE'S THE CAMERA?? I grab my new Olympus point and shoot camera....Jim grabs the flashlight........and this is what we caught.......
We let the kids walk outside one by one to see the bear with their own two eyes - seriously, it's such a cool story to tell their friends, right!?
This guy just laid their eating away and looking up at us every so often.....it was so surreal. We were all thinking "this is the cub....he's not so big"........
And we all ran into the house! He was huge! And the only thing seperating myself from him was my car. But I couldn't help myself. I wanted to get closer - get that one good shot (yeah right, it was pitch black outside). I was shaking like crazy from adrenaline.
There was seriously ONE piece of cake on this plate that he's licking and he stayed in this position licking and chewing for at least 2 minutes. That's one slow eating bear.....
**for the record, there has not been a single black bear attack in the entire state of Florida, ever. And these are protected animals.
1 comments:
HOLY SMOKES!! That's insane and a GREAT story!
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