About the Bear

He was a hairy bear, he was a scary bear.

(Ha! Did you see what I just did?  I described him with adjectives!)

The children and I had been at the park across the street and on our way home I saw that bear investigating our neighbor’s tree.  He was three houses from ours, so he wasn’t exactly between us and safety. Still, he was cause for concern.

We stayed on the park side of the street and as we came directly across from him, I waved and said, “Hi!”.  I was hoping to install a “friends, not food” attitude in him.  Well, he took one look at us and took off behind the house.  Before we reached home, we saw him re-emerge from behind another house about two doors down from ours on the other side.  He crossed the street and disappeared behind those houses.

Once  home, I did a little bear safety research.  Turns out that I did the exact right thing in waving my arms and making noise.  That’s when I found out that bears can open lever-handled doors and get in windows.  But generally, they’ll only do that if they smell food, but not humans.

Tami Nomad asked me what to do if a hairy, scary bear is lurking around your door. Beats me!  There are lots of things to do to make your home less inviting to bears, mainly keeping your garbage out of reach, keeping pet food inside, and cleaning your grill clean.  If they don’t smell it, they won’t bother you.

At least in theory.

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