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8 comments

Comment from: Daddy [Visitor]
Daddy

Hmmmmmm. If you are brave enough (or perhaps–dumb enough?) It appears you have a very good start on fertalize (ok. It’s probably spelled wrong) for a rather nice garden. I would give the depositor enough time to return to his tundra, before investing his deposit, if I were you.

11/26/08 @ 18:07
Comment from: Aunt Bann [Visitor]
Aunt Bann

Well, Diana, it seems you either might plan to make friends with the bear or see if you can turn it into dead meat! (Of course, there may be more than one bear in the immediate area, in which case the other(s) might decide to come hunting you!

Whatever, it sounds like you and Maxwell will be staying close to the house until the bears hibernate, huh???

11/27/08 @ 21:43
Comment from: LG [Visitor]
LG

Hi,

Might I suggest perusing the websites for the cities of West Vancouver and North Vancouver? They have bears coming out of the mountains on a regular basis up there so these sites have numerous handy hints for keeping bears at bay or at least reducing the attraction of ones home and yard to the beasts.

I live on an island at the mouth of the Fraser so no bears as yet but we do have coyotes, and tonnes of feral rabbits to feed them, across the street from us. Some mornings, we find their scat in our yard. Our house rabbits tend to kick up quite a fuss if we have a window open when the carnivores visit and it also makes the house smell of old dog. Urban, or semi-rural, wild life can have a surprising effect on our lives.

I once went to the doctor to get something to help my intermittent sleep. It had gone on long enough. I was stupid from sleep deprivation. It wasn’t until later, when we trimmed the plum trees overhanging the roof, that I realised the cause of my sleep disturbance wasn’t menopause as I’d suspected; it was raccoons on the roof. A half hour of chainsaw time remedied a long-standing sleep problem. Were it that all problems with marauding wild life could be so easily solved.

Good luck bear-proofing the yard. It does make raccoons stomping on the roof seem pretty minor.

Lorraine

11/29/08 @ 10:43
Comment from: [Member]

Raccoons on the roof! Wow! That would keep you awake, I bet. I’m wondering why you thought it was menopause. “Doc, I can’t sleep at night. Is a lot of roof racket a symptom of menopause?” :D

I have a coon under my porch from time to time. He’s a sizable thing, too. When I step out on the porch, he hightails it for the neighbor’s house (they have a chicken coop, which I imagine is well-protected…or maybe they just don’t have any chickens left anymore).

Y’all have grizzlies up there in Canada, too, don’t you? Here in Colorado, we have black bears (and claims of grizzly sightings over the last four decades, grizzly hairs found, and even a grizzly or two shot here, but the Colorado wildlife peeps insist they’re extinct here. OK). I don’t want to step out my door and meet either one. I’ll check on some bear info. Thanks!

d

11/29/08 @ 15:11
Comment from: LG [Visitor]  
LG

Hi,

Menopause because the timing fit and because I didn’t hear any racket. By the time I was awake, all was silent. The only noise we consciously heard in the night was knocking on our front door, only to find no one there. By the time one regains consciousness from a deep sleep, fumbles to find something presentable in which to answer the door, then opens said door, sleep returns slowly, if at all. When we finally discovered a squirrel in the attic (literally not figuratively), using a roof beam on which to crack nuts, the mystery was solved. It does demonstrate how some folk can suspect ghosts. Urban wildlife!

In Canada, we actually have 3 kinds of bears: polar, black and grizzly. Since the closure of the Stanley Park Zoo, we’ve had no polar bears in our neck of the woods but the other two seem to be in good supply and increasing. Want a few?

At the moment, there is an official looking memo from the government wild-life department going around stating the official identification criteria for differentiating black bears from grizzlies. It mentions the visual differences, says bells tend to warn off black bears and that pepper spray is an effective deterrent in a black bear attack. The memo then goes on to mention the appearance of black bear scat. It says grizzly scat is more easily identified because it has bells in it and smells of pepper spray. Any bells in the specimen you found?

All kidding aside, bears are not nice neighbours and it sounds like your rural idyll might require some safety measures. Just what you need, more work.

Cheers,
Lorraine


11/29/08 @ 17:47
Comment from: [Member]

LOL. :D

We had squirrels in the attic in Alabama, come to think of it. They were noisy critters. Then we got cats in the house and a dog. Although none of them went into the attic, the squirrel activity ceased immediately. Maybe the squirrels could smell them…?

Or maybe the pets made so much noise we could no longer hear the squirrels, come to think of it.

d

11/30/08 @ 10:08
Comment from: Peachy [Visitor]
Peachy

Diana–We have bears in this area. Earlier this year we had a small black bear half a block from my house, so I’m not surprised if one went through your yard. Hopefully Max was smart enough to not get too close to Yogi.

During spring and fall the bears will be hungrier. In the former they just woke up, and in the latter it’s a last-ditch effort to fatten up for hibernation. Make sure you keep access to garbage, bird-seed (yes, they’ll eat from feeders), and dog food to a minimum.

The raccoons can be tons of fun. One night I had one slitting open a screen window with his claw. He wanted to come in and munch on the cat food. Another time I had to chase a mother and her kits out of my garage; they had come to feast on the dog’s kibble. And yes, I’ve had them scrabbling on my roof at 3 a.m. Makes for a great night’s sleep. The real down-side, though, is that they can carry rabies. Pls be careful of any wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth ‘coons!

One final welcome warning to our neck o’ the woods: foxes and coyotes. Max looks big enough not to be bothered by them. However, don’t let your cats get out, or Fluffy may not come back.

Other than all that, it’s a pretty quiet and idyllic area.

12/30/08 @ 06:55
Comment from: [Member]

I think I’m good to go with coons, Peachy, but I appreciate the warnings. The cats are all indoor cats. The screens are all on the inside of the windows and the windows are very, very far from the ground, anyway. I’m more afraid that Maxx will have an unfortunate encounter with a coon, rabid or not (he’s current on his rabies shot, of course, but coons are vicious little buggers). There’s an off-chance that a coon will decide to pop into the doggie door (if they get past Maxx), which means they’ll get into the mud room only, but I don’t normally leave food there, anyway. (I have the same concern about foxes, which are capable of scaling the dog fence and exploring, but they concern me a bit less than the coons.)

Garbage may be an issue with the bears, though. Hm. I’m not sure how to improve the situation, though. I already have a large garbage container with a lid. I don’t normally put food in it. So far, so good.

d

01/03/09 @ 11:37


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