The Yearling

So I'm just sitting at my desk when I hear this strange scratching squeaking sound. My brain is searching to recognize at as I am running towards the sound. I get to the kitchen and find a black bear with his paw on the window and his long 3" nails scratching and squeaking as they slide down the glass. He was trying to reach my suet bird feeder which hangs from our fascia. I yelled at him through the glass and clapped my hands to scare him away - I was very afraid that our 35 year old single pane window wouldn't be able to hold his weight. Luckily he was scared off and ran away.

This is sort of what he looked like (not my photo): 

 - except our guy was very skinny. A couple of hours later I saw the conservation officer's truck go through our street so I hopped in the car to catch up with him. I guess another neighbour had called him.

The sad news is that this little guy is only about a year and a half old and has been recently kicked out of the den as his mother is about to have a baby. He's hungry and has become garbage habituated. The conservation officer told me they will set a trap and he will have to be destroyed because he can't be rehabilitated.

It makes me so sad that once agains humans messed things up. If we hadn't made it easy for the bear to find food in our neighbourhood, if we had cared a little more about nature and our surroundings, this little guy wouldn't loose his life. I know it's the circle of life, but we still shouldn't expedite it!

One man's garbage...

Today is garbage day in my neighbourhood and during my walk with Eco it's kinda fun to see what types of things are in people's recycling (in this community, we combine all our recyclables in transparent blue bags to be sorted elsewhere) - the types of pop people drink, or brand of coffee, or the number of fast food containers, etc. But there's another thing that often ends up at the end of the driveway -usually several days before garbage day - and that's other unwanted items that I assume people put out there in hopes that someone else will come along and take it. Now in cities this isn't a new concept - there are plenty of stories around the internet about terrific scores people have found in their alleys -  in downtown New York or LA or other high density living areas  -  and how they take these unwanted tables, chairs, dressers etc and clean them up and repaint them and voila - a beautiful decorating item for the cost of a can of paint!!!

But it never used to occur in the suburb, or does it? Is this common in your neighbourhood too? Do you often see  boxes of items at the end of people's driveways - or living room chairs, or cat scratching posts or coffee makers etc? Or is it just some embarrassing situation that happens in my neighbourhood only?

Bear-y season

June is usually the beginning of the berry season starting with Strawberries and then on to others such as blueberries and raspberries but in our neighbour it's also time for a black bear! So we have Bear-y season!

I think part of the reason is because we've had such poor weather which means many plants are behind schedule leaving the bear with less food than usual, and so he's discovered that almost everyone has a black plastic garbage can that's really easy to open and holds some yummy things. Yesterday he had a neighbour's garbage pulled out to the street and there was a nice big takeout container of spaghetti. He must of loved that - or come to think of it, maybe not since they were lots of it left for me to identify! On my morning dog walk it was pretty evident that he went in and out of just about everyone's driveway/garage/carport looking for food - and may have gotten enough to eat because I know of two mounds of scat in our area - and don't tell me there's probably more than one! Did he bring his friends? Or her babies?

I tell you - it's scary to look out my single paned window and see this thing the size of a Volkswagen only about 10' from the house! If he wanted in, he could easily do it! Eep!

And yesterday I saw some black fur on some barbed wire on the back corner of my property so he may have been in my backyard too! Not going to let the dog out at night anymore!

The sad part is that we humans can't learn what not to do and he's probably going to lose his life if we can't learn or stop being lazy about our garbage. It's all a very sad situation isn't it?

Photo credit: http://wildanimalsnames.blogspot.ca/2009/03/black-bear.html

We're finally getting some spring weather and we're starting to see some colour in the garden.

This year  I'm going to work really hard getting a lawn in my back yard - it disappeared shortly after we had a puppy! Although it can be nice not to mow, a dog that's run across wet grass is much easier to clean up than a dog that's out in mud.

If you know the name of this shrub, could you tell me? 

I can't remember and I can't find it anywhere yet.

The baby hats have been received by the photographer and I'm continuing to make new ones - ranging from new born to a couple of months old. We were at my SILs house last night and measured her little 6 week old's head and then for fun measured all our heads.... very interesting experiment! Heads are deceiving! Those who you thought would have a bigger head turned out to be smaller than someone else. It's hard to judge weather a baby hat is too big or too small when I'm making it - I'm thinking of making a little papier mache mould so I can fit the hats to see how they'll look.

Today we're going to the  butchers to buy for our "Traditional Untraditional" Easter dinners - which will include BBQ this weekend. Some people are lucky to get a 4 day weekend, like most people I only get three days off. What are your plans for this long weekend?

Bye Bye Birdie + Holy &^%$ a Bear! (again)

Yesterday morning I let the dog out in our backyard and found the pole with my birdfeeders on the ground and my feeders basically destroyed. Then as I went around to the front of the house down the driveway to take Eco for a walk, for the first time in my life, I found the contents of my garbage can strewn across my front yard - something had dragged it about 10' feet from where it was. I don't like picking up my garbage from my lawn. But my garbage can was not the only one of interest - during our walk I saw about 8 cans turned over with the contents scattered over people's lawns or the street.

Later in the day, I smelled something fishy in the yard and as I followed my nose, I peered over a neighbour's fence to find that young black bear having a lounge along their fence. He was about as surprised about me as I was about him. I called Wildlife Canada but they didn't care. Even though we are a block away from an elementary school it, they didn't care. The RCMP will only do something if the bear is actively threatening someone.

After alerting the neighbours,  he was seen a couple more times later in the day. I spoke with a lady is is managing the Bear Aware program and she happened to be at our school earlier in the day to talk to the kids about bears in the neighbourhood! She said she'd be coming door to door in our neighbourhood to talk to people about this bear. She figured that because he's so comfortable around us (not only by lounging amongst us, but being out during the day), that he would most likely have to be killed before the end of summer.

So no more birdfeeders for me. I will miss my sweet little companions. I will have to leave the feeding to people who can hang the feeders off their balconies of their two story houses. As well, we'll have to find a way to keep our garbage in the house until the morning of garbage day. Did you know there is a by-law about putting your garbage out the night before? I guess many people don't know that because I've seen lots of people putting their garbage out the night before.

And after I was sure the bear was no longer in the neighbouring yards, I continued to search for the bad smell. I found the source - a poor animal that crawled under my shed to die.  I will try to throw some dirt on it, but in the mean time, I will not be spending too much time outside - good thing it's cold and crappy weather!

Edited: First, he WAS still in the neighbouring yard - he was sleeping in a tree in the yard beside me, I couldn't see him, but my neighbours could and then, he was in my front yard last night around 11pm, about 8 feet from my front door - eeep!

What a day!

Spring Clean-up

This week is Spring clean-up in our community -you may have it as well, but in case you don't  it means that instead of our 2 garbage can restriction for curbside pickup, we can put all sorts of garbage at the end of our driveway and the lovely sanitation engineers take it all (well most of it) without complaint (well mostly). Couches, washers, stoves, beds, bicycles, TVs - it all gets dumped at the end of the driveway.

And following this tradition of putting out your garbage a week before the pick-up date, people drive around picking through your garbage, 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' don'tchaknow. As I walked through my neighbourhood with Eco this week, I saw mainly junk. I really don't think any pickers would score too much. I was surprised to see a guy driving his big pick-up truck around snipping off electrical cords from old vacuums and such, I really didn't think that the cost gained would exceed the cost spent driving your big ol' truck around - but what do I know?

I did see something endearing this morning though - a young girl around 7 or 8 years old was going through a garbage bag at the end of her driveway (front door wide open) at 6:30 am and retrieved two small stuffed animals from the bag, she looked cautiously over her shoulder and clutched them lovingly as she quickly returned inside. Before she went in, I smiled at her hoping to covey my understanding and compassion. My imagination ran wild with all sorts of scenarios related to that little scene.

I wonder how many other kids are traumatized seeing their favourite toy or bicycle at the end of the driveway? I know sometimes I've had regrets about things that had been put out there (that I thought could have been useful to someone and not be dumped in the landfill needlessly). How about you? Have you ever had a regret about something you threw in the garbage?