Checked Off The List

I know I've mentioned we get a large amount of black bears here every fall. They're literally everywhere from about Sept -Nov, eating everything they can find in preparation for winter. There's a whole neighborhood here of hobby farms backing on to crown land that goes forever (fun stat, 95% of the province is crown land/wilderness). Maybe aside from a previous life as a park ranger near a major salmon river, I'm not sure I've seen so many bears in one place, ever.

I have a few fruit and nut trees, plus the last of the garden, and it's an entire thing keeping the bears out of them and the fruit picked every year. Our place has an excessive amount of electric fence wire everywhere right now, and still...there are two people gates that it would be weird/inconvenient to have fortified, and it took them no time at all to start using them. One even opens the gate rather than climb it (and does not close it when he leaves) which is just beyond ridiculous. They can't currently access any of the fruit trees or vegetable garden from the yard around the house, but they still visit regularly.

Said gate with claw marks by the chain and bent hinges. Also my very sad flower garden and some apologies this week for the lack of media effort - it's been mostly dark and rainy and I have some grainy phone pictures and that's it.

So, long story short, despite all my efforts to keep them out, I had a feeling the boys had probably seen a bear or two by now. Generally speaking, nearly all the horses I know just get used to them minding their own business and ignore them but it is a bit like loose dogs, some horses just get grumpy or scared about it or have maybe had a bad experience at some point.

Sophie striking a dramatic pose yesterday because I left the lawn tractor/harrows parked in a different place than normal. Bears are no big deal lol

We put it to the test last night. I was walking Tradey back home from a trailventure and it was getting dark and a momma bear and her two cubs popped out on the road in front of us.  Her body language wasn't bad, but it wasn't great because she really wanted to head our direction but we were in the way. So we stopped and waited for her to decide where she wanted to go. After staring us down for a little bit she eventually rounded up her cubs and went off into the bush on the other side of the road to wait for us to go by. Tradey was a very good boy and patiently stood and waited and was intrigued, but not worried. He also marched past the spot where the bears were lingering with no problems, they popped out and continued on their way once we were past, and everyone was happy.

Home safe and sound. Looking at how dark it is, I did leave our walk home a little late :)

So, we can check that off the list. Reliable trail horses here really need to be ok with seeing wildlife. Buck saw a bear from a less worrying distance on our last outing and was fine as well, so I'm feeling good that my future riding buddies and I are going to be fine. I know sometimes I write about this sort of thing and some of you think it's crazy, but it's totally the norm here and everyone kind of just respects them but goes about their normal lives. Discovery channel does them dirty with all the 'a bear attacked me!' dramatizations making it seem like they eat people on the daily, but it's not like it could never happen either. So, I'm a chicken compared to many and don't go hiking alone this time of year - either husband or friends (or reliable ponies, yay!) need to be in tow :)

Also, I invested in a battery box and lots of lights after last year's adventure with a bear sleeping outside the barn at night lol