Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Squirrels and Chipmunks and... Bears? Oh My!

We live in the suburbs. My son knew the word "deer" before he knew "dog." We have a lovely little rabbit who eats all our strawberry plants. We've even seen a fox or two. But NEVER did I ever think I would look out my window and see this:



Holy friggin' cow! My heart hasn't raced like that since I let a hot Israeli guy talk me into going up in a two-seater plane with him.

I may never recover.

19 comments:

Caroline Starr Rose said...

!!!

And I thought the cottonmouth in my backyard was bad!

Jennifer Shirk said...

Oh, my gosh!! I would have had a heart attack!

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness! Glad to know you were safe in the house. Squirrels and chipmunks running around in the neighborhood are okay, but not bears!

Larissa said...

Holy crow! I hear about that every once in a while around here (north Jersey), but I've never actually seen it myself. I'm honestly not sure what my reaction would be, though I'm sure it'd be different depending on whether I (and my dog & husband) was outside or inside at the time.

Amy Allgeyer Cook said...

AGH!! We had a bear biting our tent once when we were camping, but to have it in your YARD!?? Did it go away? Will it come back? Did it try to get in your door? I think I'd still be freaked out!

Patti said...

Bears are my biggest fear when camping, so to see one coming down your street would be horrible.

Heidi Willis said...

WOA!!! That's a bear!! On your driveway!! And he's real!

We get a ton of deer and foxes, but I've only heard of a bear once, and it was a mile away. Too far to be scary, anyway.

In SoCal we used to get mountain lions. That was creepy too.

Hope you've recovered!

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

Wow. I didn't think you lived anywhere near bear country. Stephanie Thornton had one in her yard but she lives in Alaska where there are probably more bears than humans.
Did you find out if it wandered out of an animal compound or came down from nearby hills? I confess--bears scare me.

Rebecca Gomez said...

I have to admit I'm a little jealous of your bear sighting! Though I'm sure it would be scary if you were outside at the time.

Around here, we've had mountain lions show up in a park before (I've not seen one personally). Very rare, but scarier than a black bear, I think.

Corey Schwartz said...

Trica, I didn't either! We live in Central Jersey!

storyqueen said...

There HAS to be a picture book idea in there somewhere....but I don't know if you can count it in your total for the year if you the bear gives you an idea....I mean, it's like the bear is doing all the work...hahaha.

I would have freaked out.

Shelley

Mother Hen said...

Can you shout at bears to 'piss off'? Not a typical sight in England.

Julie Hedlund said...

Wow! A big one too. And I thought we took the "nature" cake with all of our coyotes. In broad daylight too. Whew!

Nicole said...

So cool! I'd love to see a bear in 'real life' *grin*

Shelli (srjohannes) said...

holy crap! that woudl freak me out

BTW - gave you a blog award today :)

hytime said...

Once upon a time there was a bear named Benjamin.
He like to scamper out of the woods visit people's houses. But people didn't like it when Benjamin visited.
One day a policeman saw Benjamin. He pointed something at Benjamin. It made a loud noise and Benjamin fell asleep. Here's what he dreamed ...

Stephanie Faris said...

That's SCARY!!! Are you really close to the woods or something? We went to a cabin in the mountains a month or so back and they had a sign on the fridge warning about leaving trash out because of bears. It terrified the kids. I thought about telling the homeowners they might want to find a less prominent place to put that sign...where maybe kids wouldn't see it!

Rena Jones said...

Did you have a late winter? I'm in Montana and we're seeing bears all over. I read the other day that because of the late snow, they're coming around to easier food sources more. The article said it happens about every 7 years or so. Still ... he's a cutie!

Anonymous said...

I would never recover either. That would scare the living day lights out of me.