Bear!!!!

Yesterday was a blah rainy day.  We slept in late, drove to Northville to walk around the touristy shops with the cute bear lamps and ashtrays, did some grocery shopping, and came home.  About the most exciting thing of the day was driving down our muddy-driveway-of-death.  We both surfed Al Gore's internets for a bit and then settled in to watch a movie.  As the movie began, the dogs started barking furiously, even more so then when they saw a chipmunk.  Pam got up to shush them.

"DAVID!! IT'S A BEAR!  GET YOUR CAMERA!"

I grabbed my camera.  Where?  I don't see it.

"ARE YOU FRIKKIN' BLIND!  IT'S RIGHT THERE UNDER THE TREE!"

Sure enough, there it was.  A black bear.  A big black bear.

The dogs were barking like crazy.  That's supposed to scare off bears, right?  Nope.  The bear looked at me with amusement.  Then he looked at the bear bird feeder.  And then at me.  As if to say, "Go ahead Skippy.  Let the dogs out.  I really want these sunflower seeds.  Are you feeling lucky kid?  Are you?"

It was really low light.  I fired off a few shots ignoring my camera's settings at first, just to record the moment, and then dialed it in as best I could.  The shots will be grainy because of the 3200 ISO setting, but it's the best I could get.

As you can see, our dogs were going nuts.

Not all three dogs, mind you.  Chevy, the male pit bull and Olivia, the hunting dog were crazy.  Ruby, probably the most ferocious of them all, was snoozing under the table as if to say "What?  It's only a bear.  Let me be, I'm sleeping.  I'll kick it's butt if it really needs kicking, but for now it's only eating bird seed.  No biggie."

Since the bear found us, I imagine we'll have to take in our bear bird feeders.  Or maybe put them out in the morning and take them in late in the day when the bears become active.  I also showed Pam how to use our shotgun so that we can try to scare it off by shooting over its head, although I'm thinking that if three barking dogs don't scare it off, a gun won't either.

I moved the bird seed from  our porch to the woodshed, which has a much stronger door.  It also doesn't lead into our cabin.