We’ve experienced a couple of nights of interrupted sleep, because of a black bear who has been stuffing itself with berries, in preparation for a long winter without food. That by itself isn’t a big problem, except that it did do a lot of damage to one of our apple trees. The big problem is the effect that the bear’s presence is having on our dog Skye, and the resulting problem of what Skye’s reaction is having on us.
In the middle of the night as Joan and I are deep in our slumber, suddenly Skye (who stays in the house) goes ballistic with loud barking and growling. This of course wakes us up, and it takes a while for us to calm Skye down and for us to get back to sleep.
When everything is quiet again, and we are once again in slumberland, the bear sneaks back, Skye explodes again with fierce barking, and we again are suddenly awake. On Tuesday night this happened about 7 or eight times. It was not a very restful night.
Last night it was better, Skye only erupted twice. This morning I discovered the damage to the apple tree. It broke some branches, but the tree is behind our garden fence, which kept the bear from doing more damage. This afternoon, I will have to pick the remaining apples from the tree to eliminate the temptation for the bear. I will also have to pick plums which the bear has yet to discover.
Below is a photo of the apple tree with its branch split and pulled over the fence.
My paintings can be seen at: www.davidmarchant.ca
I read this to my husband and his comment was "bears hate electric fences." So there is that and I see some apples on the ground yet , in the picture.
ReplyDeleteApplesauce and plum preserves. The fruit looks tasty.