Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Straight Poop




The Wetter Network is promising sunshine today as I try to get both eyes focusing at once. Not an easy job when you wake with a headache. I am driving Bente to Nanaimo today so I have to pull out all the headache removal tricks in my repertoire, starting with some acupressure and Myoflex cream. Then Cappuccino with an extra hit of instant coffee, the caffeine in it being a "natural" painkiller.

We leave at 10:30 and Bente, bless her heart, has brought me a Tim Horton's English Toffee Cappuccino. Well, if nothing else I'll be alert on the drive. Our trip takes us East over "the Hump" past Mount Arrowsmith, through Cathedral Grove and around Cameron Lake, then past Angel Rock. The scenery is amazing: the sky that brilliant Island blue, the leaves on the trees a myriad of fall colors. A big rig trucker tries to harass me into going faster than the 80km/hr posted by moving right up to my back bumper, but I refuse to let him intimidate me using up a few of my daily quota of swears and scrunchy faces. Did you know that before Bente met me, she never used language like I use? Really.

Our first stop is at Buckerfields for biscuits for the dogs. Then back out on the highway to Nanaimo. We make a stop at the new Best Buy store just for a look around, then a quick stop at Costco. Bente needs to get a few things for Codfather Seafood, and I need a Costco Hotdog and fries. It's tradition.

We are home just after three, and my headache is still with me. I give up and take some Tylenol to try to alleviate it. The dogs are antsy and want to be out in the sunshine. I don't blame them. As we hit the gate to the garden yard, I notice something on the ground beside the Outdoor Gas Convection Oven...aw crap, literally. Yup, that good old Cute Little Island Black Bear has been visiting again. Funny, I never noticed that when I looked out the window this morning and I am REALLY observant. Hmmmmm.

I am not picking up the Bear Poop, I'll wait for Richard, so I herd the dogs back indoors and through the living room Patio Door to the pen on the other side of the house. For those of you counting pens, we have 3 of them - Garden Yard on the East side of the house, West Yard on the, yes, West side of the house, and Small Pen, which sits inside of West Yard, right outside the Patio Door in the dog room on the Northwest corner of the house. And if you are counting Patio Doors, we have 3 of them as well: Living Room facing South, Dog Room facing West and Back Porch facing North. There, now you have a very confused idea of house and yard.

Where was I? Oh yes, Bear Poop. So we wait for Richard who arrives at 4:30. He picks up that pile of poop and disposes of it, then the dogs race out to the yard. I begin to pick up apples the bear knocked out of the tree and chewed on and Richard helps. Suddenly he hollers at me that he found more poop. And then more poop, and as he is disposing of that, he finds MORE bear poop in the middle of the yard. If you are keeping track, that's 4 piles in the yard...today. As I toss a bear eaten apple core over the fence, I notice 1, no make that 2, nope make that 3 more piles of bear poop out in the drive. WOW, this little guy has been really busy.

And some of that poop looks really, um, well, quite fresh. HMMMMM. "Do you think that maybe while I was gone to Nanaimo, and you were away from the house too, that the Cute Little Island Black Bear made a visit to the yard for apples?" I ask Richard. "I was just going to say that," he replies. Oh now that does NOT make me happy at all.

On the good side, the apples are mostly gone from the two apple trees, the bear made sure of that. With his food source gone, he should move on. On the bad side, that is just waaaay too bold for me if he was in the yard during the day. I know the bear wasn't in the yard at 1am, because I was up and I looked out to see if he was. Sure, he could have been there any time after that, and yes, maybe I didn't notice the poop when I looked out the window this morning, I WAS bleary eyed. And maybe I didn't notice it when we drove out of the ya...say, come to think of it, Bente DID point out a pile of poop on the side of the drive by the corner of the garden yard as we left.

So now I will have to be hyper vigilant and if I see him during the day near the yard, really create a racket to chase him off. And next year I want to come up with a really good bear scare to make him give our yard a wide berth. Richard keeps suggesting something to do with car horns, 12 volt batteries and strobe lights. Well, he IS a mechanic, after all. Me, I'm not so sure about that. I have visions of a lot of sleepless nights and really, REALLY pissed off neighbors. Not to mention the RCMP knocking on our door at 3am.

And I am still thinking about wireless night vision web cameras for the yard, just to see what is really going on out there in the dark.

But that could get crazy too. During Cute Little Island Bush Bunny mating season, I mean.

Oh my, better rethink that one.

I mean, who wants to get busted by the Conservation Officers for Bunny porn?

1 comment:

Kate VanDewark Plummer said...

RoFLOL, HBRoFLOL [hold belly roll on floor laugh out loud] , Oh my! Bunny Porn now is it??? Oh dear, yep, ya maht wanna rethink that one, snicker! How 'bout a loud Aooogah horn or an air horn like you can get for a boat?? If you find any mini webcams that will fit a kitty's neck safely, lemme know. I'd really love to know what they're up to and where they go each day. Or. . . maybe not.....I already have visions of Texas Hold 'em poker games in the loft and covert black ops missions down by the creek!