The bear and the ballerina

We woke up this morning to an average day, nothing really seemed out of place until HD noticed our bird feeder was missing.  HD comes over to our large window every morning to see if any hummingbirds are hanging out and this morning when he did he noticed our large squirrel proof feeder was missing.  He went right outside and to our surprise it was in the yard, the feeder was hanging from metal cord but now the cord was ripped in two pieces.  The feeder was about 10 feet away and beat all to heck!  It was no doubt a bear, the bear who has been getting into our neighbors trash.

Minutes after we found our badly beaten bird feeder, I decided to call and freak my very bear phobic Mom.  She immediately said I am surprised it didn't bother the chickens....

I ran to the window and two of our chickens were running around the yard, our chickens are not supposed to be running around the yard!  I didn't want to scare the kids and I didn't know what we would find when we got out there so I yelled to HD "the B-E-A-R (all spelling this) G-O-T the C-H-I-C-K-E-N-S  R-U-N, HD does not like the spelling game and me yelling spelling at the top of my lungs so did not keep the kids from getting scared, HD runs from the bathroom as I am running out the door and he tells me to wait!  He went first and you won't believe what that bear did, it literally ripped two boards off the back of the chicken coop so that it could get to our little chicken, all we found of Henny was blood and feathers.

I called the game warden who very rudely informed me that during a drought lots of bears go into neighborhoods, I  quickly stifled her by saying first of all I do not live in a neighborhood I live in the great big forest, and I have for the last 5 years and bears by nature do not go around killing things so I am not calling to tell you I have had a bear sighting but rather that a bear has ripped down walls to kill a chicken and left the corn meal which was easier to reach than the chicken to kill the CHICKEN!  She then changes her tone, and puts me through to a wild life biologist who I never really got to talk to only voice mail, and she tells me oh we are dealing with an agressive bear that is out of character, so like is it come break down my door to get a cookie out of character or like hmmmm thats odd, she said she can't answer that!

We had to go on with our day but I will say we stayed inside, we kept looking out the windows, we kept our dogs inside too.

On a much better note, Daisy had her first ballet lesson today!  She did fabulous for a first timer, she spun with the best of them!  And I do believe she was the prettiest girl in the whole place, I might be a bit prejudice but she is simply beautiful!

We are leaving some lights on tonight so that we can see the bear if he comes back for another free meal, and  I think we might leave our bedroom window open so we can hear any noise.  HD has one of those digital outdoor camera's he is hanging on a tree as I type this, yes he is out in the dark with a very large bear looming around and he is not one bit afraid, me, me, scared to death!  I told him to take a gun for crying out loud and he keeps telling me black bears are more afraid of us than we are of them, I say well you don't see me in his back yard tamping around do you?

If we get any pictures tonight I will let you know...