Look, girls, I'm blogging

I was asked to blog tonight so friends would know I hadn't been eaten by the bear. :)

Last night just after dusk Molly started barking, and as usual I started yelling at her to stop. This time she was lunging at the end of her tie-out as well, but she came up on the porch when I called her. She continued staring across the yard and growling.

I looked where she was looking and realize there was a big black shape by the birdfeeder that I had not yet brought in. Molly was just being a good watchdog. She wasn't barking at bunnies tonight.

Bear.

"Oh, bummer--but how neat!" I pretty much thought. I scooped up Molly, put her in the house, and came out with two pots, my camera, and a flashlight. I tried two shots on the camera but only got blackness. So I picked up my pots and rang them together, thinking I was going to get to see my bear crash off into the bushes, as they usually do.

Not this bear. This bear didn't move.

I banged, and yelled. The bear finally got up and SAUNTERED TOWARD THE PORCH! He had big long legs. This was no yearling. He stopped at the second bird feeder and merely had to tip his nose up to touch it, and that feeder is at the level of my head (five feet). I yelled and beat the pots together some more and he totally ignored me.

This was not acceptable. I couldn't just go in the house and teach this bear that yelling women would slink harmlessly away.

So I threw a pot at him. It went bouncy bouncy across the yard toward his feet. He sort of looked at it. I lobbed the second one at him and it bounced far more impressively right up to him. He finally decided to trot veeerry sloooowly away.

This did not please me. The barn was still unlocked, with the walk-through door unlatched, and I had kittens downstairs where cat food was kept. I could not leave it unlatched for the bear to paw open and have kitten snacks.

So I carefully made my way down to my car, drove the car to the barn door, stepped from the car to the first floor of the cat facility, moved all the food to the back, locked everything up, sprayed some bleach spray around the stoop (don't ask me why), got back in my car and drove it back over across the road, hoping all this starting and stopping of the car (not to mention a beep or two on the horn) might have convinced the bear to keep on trotting.

The bears are the one reason I do not camp in my cabin on the hill. The cabin door isn't a real door with a real latch. It's just a bunch of boards nailed together with a hook and an eye. I am a wuss when it comes to things that go bump in the night in the middle of the big woods. I don't mind raccoons, skunks, foxes, or even coyotes.

But big bears that don't turn tail and run--that I don't like.

The kittens are coming around nicely. Three are purring and one sticks his paws out the cage bars saying "pet me, pet me!" in kittenese. I'll call up the vet tomorrow and see if I can get them in for FeLV/FIV testing Saturday.

Pictures tomorrow, I promise.