Can you bear country living?

There was a report last weekend that a bear trashed a couple of bird feeders in a subdivision in nearby  Lindstrom. Up around Duluth reports of a "poor berry season" have bears searching for food in neighborhoods. Today, mid-day, Franco, the Better Half's [BH] border collie crossbreed, exploded into frantic barking at the deck walkout door. The BH went to see what set off her excitable dog this time and saw a pair of black paws hanging onto the deck railing.

BH and both dogs chased the bear away with lots of barking and yelling. I, of course, ignored the dogs because they're half crazy half the time and most of the time one or another erupts with little or no cause that we humans can discern. Today was an exception. The bear decided it was outnumbered and outmatched and ambled off into the woods North of the house.

bear scat on deck

Photo by J. Harrington

I take the bird feeders in at night, every night, and have been doing so for several years. The trash can is kept in the garage during the Summer months. One year a bear left a pile of scat on the deck. Another year one trashed the bird feeder we used to hang in the front yard. Yet another year a bear shredded our screens as it climbed onto the deck to see if there was anything to eat. (There wasn't.)

bird feeder eaten by bear

Photo by J. Harrington

I am not going to stop feeding birds during the day time. For the foreseeable future, I'll be armed while doing outside chores. I'm not looking for trouble, but neither do I expect the neighborhood bears to help pay my property taxes.  The bear(s) and the deer are welcome to the windfall pears under the pear tree. Local bears don't get room and / or board at the house unless they can pass a background check and start to pay rent.

[UPDATE: (It's not just country living) From the August Friends of the Mississippi River Newsletter:

Bear aware in the cities

We’re not the only ones enjoying the metro river this summer. In June, a black bear roamed through St. Paul's Battle Creek area. Another was spotted heading toward Union Depot. And in early August, a jogger saw a black bear lumbering along Mississippi River Boulevard near Shadow Falls and the river gorge. Black bear range doesn’t typically extend this far south, but sightings are becoming more common. If you see one, treat it with respect and let the DNR know. 

Read more from the Pioneer Press  >>]

Bears at Raspberry Time

By Hayden Carruth

Fear. Three bears

are not fear, mother

and cubs come berrying

in our neighborhood

like any other family.

I want to see them, or any

distraction. Flashlight

poking across the brook

into briary darkness,

but they have gone,

noisily. I go to bed.

Fear. Unwritten books

already titled. Some

idiot will shoot the bears

soon, it always happens,

they’ll be strung up by the paws

in someone’s frontyard

maple to be admired and

measured, and I'll be paid

for work yet to be done—

with a broken imagination.

At last I dream. Our

plum tree, little, black,

twisted, gaunt in the

orchard: how for a moment

last spring it flowered

serenely, translucently

before yielding its usual

summer crop of withered

leaves. I waken, late,

go to the window, look

down to the orchard.

Is middle age what makes

even dreams factual?

The plum is serene and

bright in new moonlight,

dressed in silver leaves,

and nearby, in the waste

of rough grass strewn

in moonlight like diamond dust,

what is it?—a dark shape

moves, and then another.

Are they ... I can’t

be sure. The dark house

nuzzles my knee mutely,

pleading for meaty dollars.

Fear. Wouldn’t it be great

to write nothing at all

except poems about bears?

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