May 6th, 2009

Monsters in the Dark

This lady here just SCARED the shit out of me!

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It’s 1:30am and Babe went to bed around 2o minutes ago.  I’m upstairs, just finished watching digg nation and here a noise.  Thought maybe Babe slammed a cupboard or dropped something, but if he had dropped something I would have heard a laugh or an ‘Oh Shit’ after.  I went downstairs and he was still in bed …

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what”

“I don’t know, kind of a loud  noise.”

Hmm, now I’m thinking the raccoon is back and after my bird feeder again … I casually walk over to the glass door and turn on the porch light.

aAAAAHHHHHH!

Now we are not just talking your normal aahhhh, we’re talking the death scream ahhhh, the scream that you re-scare yourself with because you’ve never heard yourself make a noise like that before.   Mind you, I thought I was going to turn on the light and maybe see the raccoon, but probably not because it’s quite now and if he was still there I’d probably still be hearing sounds.  Why turn on the light … because it’s been raining and cloudy for days, it’s still cloudy, 1:30am, PITCH FUCKIN black out side and I can’t see shit. When I turned on the porch light there was BIG Mama bear up on the railing of our deck looking right at me eye level! Because she is standing on all fours on the railing she  looks to be about 9ft tall and 5ft wide.  AAAAAHHHHH

Once I heard my own scream, instantly two thoughts -

First “Babe BEAR”, except Babe had already leapt from the bed like superman and was there before then end of the “aaahhh!”. Not just there either, there in boxers in crouched fight stance arms out like feelers ready to take action.  Because, after 10yrs I just made a noise like he’d never heard before.

Second “Oh shit I just screamed at a big ass bear!”    “Wait I’m sorry!  Totally didn’t mean it, just wasn’t expecting to see you RIGHT there, had no idea, please don’t eat me!”

My scream did instantly make her run away while almost giving Babe and I both a heart attack.   I definitely was not far away from fainting, which would have probably been hilarious for the bear or anyone to see through the window.   Scream and then thump, I would laugh at my own video.  The scream that came from a heart stopping chest shaking moment I can only compare with being a child.  Say around 7 or 8 years old, being afraid of monsters in the dark and having a heart stopping waking nightmare.  The type of moment where even though you know everything is o.k. your heart still races for the next 30 minutes while you take deep focused breaths.

Yes, I am accustom to seeing the bears now, at least to the point where I can say the word bear calmly  when they arrive.  Versus the first few encounters that lead me to run around the house like a chicken with my head cut off diving for my camera and locking doors frantically.  Yes, I have seen the cubs up extremely close on the porch looking in the windows at us.  Yes, I have seen the mom before.  NO, I had never seen the mom up close, she is fucking HUGE!

Let’s do a comparison -  Cub face on right, cute ‘Awe’.  Mom face on left, intimidating ‘ahhh’.

Here’s video via WeAreGreen.tv of the cubs playing in our back yard the other day.

The Scare Bear Affect.

It’s now 4am, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from the fact that my eyes are still WIDE open. Way to much adrenaline to sleep tonight.

5.7.2009 = 4 am still awake after Bear Scare

February 18th, 2009

Bear In The Backyard!

Our house in built into the side of a mountain, so a quarter of the back is underground. This means our first floor bedroom has a window about the size of a porthole. About a week ago I woke up to close the little blind on the little widow an there was a big ‘ol wild turkey staring back at me at 5:30am. We were about a foot away from each other with the glass in-between and given the ground level this put us eye to eye. This caused enough shock for me to give a little hoot and wake Babe up with something to the affect of, “Oh SHIT! There’s a turkey looking at me!”

So fast forward one week to today … I hear Babe downstairs yell BEAR! This has become my new favorite word. This prompts immediate action … grab the cameras and lock the doors as fast as fucking possible and then act like our cats … run from window to window trying to get a better view.

Today however, by the time I got down stairs the bear was out of site, didn’t know if he went back into the woods or behind the house. The view for behind the house is only the little porthole … I RAN TO IT … I don’t know, in hopes of seeing the bears ass walking up the mountain. I pull back the curtain and HOLY SHIT the bear was right there looking at me just like the turkey. This caused immediate shock on my end which resulted in a sound coming from my mouth which can only be described as part Hoot part Scream part heart about to explode.

After immediate shock – PICTURE! Babe then ran in with the video camera, here’s the video
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