We had a late-night visitor!

So much for our viscious watch-dogs! Last night around midnight I got up to get a drink out of the kitchen and I happened to notice one of Mom's hummingbird feeders almost touching the ground. That had to mean only one thing, so I ran to get Ryan to confirm my suspicions. (And oh yeah, that's when we noticed that the sliding glass door was wide open! That darn bear could have just walked thru the screen door if he wanted to!) After looking out another window, we saw that the big bird feeder that is mounted on a metal pole was just pushed over like nothing.

After that I woke up my parents to show them the destruction left behind. Early this morning we all went out to follow his tracks to see where he came from and which direction he left. I can honestly tell you that I never thought we would have a bear here. Granted something tore out a bees next in a tree stump last year, but I just thought it could have been something else. But there is no doubt that this was a bear. Wow.





These tracks were found along the beach next door. From all of his tracks, he was all over the place around our place.

And no, the dogs were snoring away when the bear was here and did not make a peep. Ryan and I actually heard it, but we heard a crackling and just thought it was one of my parents having a late-night craving for something. Then once we got up, we put two & two together and realized that what we were hearing was actually the bear crushing the feeder!!

In other news..........we were again awoken in the late night/early morning to the smell of the forest fire. There is even some few stray ashes making its way here. It seems that every time they make headway on this thing, something happens and it rages on even worse. As of this post, 12,000 acres have been burned. Reports are that the National Guard have also been called in to help. Ooooh boy.