A bear scare

Last night I awoke to footsteps outside our bedroom window on the porch.  This is not something I like to wake up to.  Over the years, I've become a pretty light sleeper...and Taylor will not wake to a bomb going off.  When I heard the footsteps, I pictured in my mind a giant, grizzly-sized, man-hungry, angry bear.  I forgot temporarily that our trash has been collecting on our porch waiting for Taylor to take to the dumpster.  Bears love trash.

I tried to go back to sleep and I think I actually succeeded for a few minutes until the second set of footsteps came across my acute hearing.  I didn't wake Taylor up.  I didn't grab for his gun...just in case I had to scare the bear off--I have to really say that I would never, ever shoot a bear unless it were literally eating me or someone I love.  I didn't grab for my phone.  I didn't grab for a knife, or a pot, or something to block me with.  No, in my delirium, I grabbed for my camera.  My mom would be so proud.

I snuck out as best I could to the living room area--stealth mode.  I thought that they could see me in the dark much better than I could them.  I dove for the outside light switch.  NO BEAR!  WTF?!  I don't know if I was breathing a sigh of relief or cussing under my breath more, but what did catch my eye was the complete lack of trash in our trash can.  Gone.

I left the outside lights on (you know, just in case...and because I'm scared of the dark), and quietly crawled back into bed.  I don't know how long it took me for my heart rate to go down, but it was sometime after that when I fell back asleep...only to have really scary nightmares about human/bear hybrids sneaking into my house.  Yes, the rest of the night was awful.

When the morning finally came, I showed Handsome Taylor the damage.  And by the way, he was so pissed that I didn't wake him up.  We carefully looked around the yard and found the trash bags scattered throughout.  One however, was missing.  There is a certain spot that the bears like to come into our yard--that is the first picture.  And my guess is that the second picture is where they left.  The rest is garbage.  Ha!

The proposed entrance

The proposed escape

A few littered pieces of trash leading off our deck..

The feast!

The trash is gone, but my camera and Taylor are at the ready when I need to see if there is another bear outside...which I'm sure there will be.  Crossing my fingers for a small, nice, non man-hungry bear this time :)