Winter has arrived and the bears are still awake!

The boys waiting for Mary to wake up...

Colder temperatures have settled in along with some nasty winds this week (that returned today). We got a sprinkling of snow yesterday but skies seems to have cleared this morning. We will see for how long? Winter darkness has also slowly creeped in - I noticed daylight arriving at roughly 8:30am - as I was going out to the store for eggs and items for making chicken/vegetable soup (tonight's dinner - yum). I don't mind the darkness too much, it just makes it hard to know when to get up without an alarm. This is the reverse problem of summer when one of my friends sets an alarm for 9pm so that with all the daylight she knows when to go to bed.

The big news of the week is the on-going saga of the bears. They have not had enough to eat this summer and therefore are still out "looking for food" before turning in for the winter. So here is what I know - there are at least three bears in town. (we are down one - keep reading)

Two weeks ago our neighbor's new puppy refused to go outside for her last busy doing of the night. Gary being a smart Alaskan - went into the garage and got in his car to go check things out. When pulling out of the garage, into the driveway - his lights found a large black bear between his fence and his garage having dinner from his garbage cans. (We have bear proof cans - one of which we am currently loaning to Gary and MaryAlice). Needless to say - Gary drove back into the garage and scrambled into the house for the night. The bear did finally move on.

On Tuesday of this week - bears were wondering just a couple of blocks from the house, as reported by friends out walking. Apparently this didn't set well with one "dude" who decided to go bow hunting in town for the bears. (Yes - it is legal to use your bow in town to kill animals - but most sane people do this to protect life and property. Not this rebel - he was "hunting" in town). He did shoot and hit a bear a couple of blocks from our house (mid-day), because it was not a kill shot (which ticks me off) the bear ran three blocks (now around the corner from our house) and ran up a tree in a yard. I am thinking this bear was probably pretty pissed off at this point. The "hunter" tracked the bear to the yard, fired one or two more arrows finally getting a kill shot, dropping the bear from the tree. (I tell you if it had been my yard, that bear would have been mine, because I would have been so mad that I would not have let him trespass onto our property. And I have friends who would have taken the bear for me) - So we are down one bear in town and I am thankful that no humans were hit by stray arrows

Moving through the week - Wednesday morning found "the big bear" going through a locked door a few blocks away into a house, in the early morning hours. I hear it walked around for a few minutes and left. The people in the house were alseep. That same morning a bear, could be the same one, tried to get into the AvTech Culinary Dorms (across the street from our house). And that same morning about 5am - a smaller black bear wandered into the Holiday Inn Express at the harbor. Seems he was checking out the trash can when the automatic doors opened - this one was kind enough to pee in the hotel before leaving.

Needless to say - we are doing a "yard check" before letting the dogs out to do their thing. I sure don't want our boys coming nose to nose with one of these hungry guys. I am not sure either one of them has the good sense to run away.