<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">This summer has been a revolving door of visitors at our house and we’ve <strong>loved</strong> it! </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">We’ve seen folks we haven’t seen in thirty years and caught up. Plus we’ve gotten to spend time with family.</span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">There has been, however, a surprise and frequent visitor recently. </span>

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-in-flower-bed.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5135" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-in-flower-bed.jpg?w=300" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="300" height="224" /></a><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">It’s that time of year in the forest. Black bears, who are actually brown or cinnamon colored, are feeding up for the long winter hibernation. </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">A bear’s natural wariness to find food overrides his fear of humans and his <span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">nose is one hundred times more sensitive than ours.</span></span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">Bird and hummingbird feeders provide as much as twelve hundred calories so the bears prowl around looking for easy food. </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">We do our part to keep the bears wild by bearproofing our house, which means we take our bird feeders in at night. </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">Only, our visitor came mid-morning!</span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"><a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-at-feeder-3.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-5129 size-thumbnail" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-at-feeder-3.jpg?w=150" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="150" height="112" /></a>On his first visit, Buddy Bear, as my sister named him, emptied our homemade feeder, and ignored the hummingbird feeder hanging ten feet above his head according to the bearproofing pamphlet instructions. It was too high for him to reach.</span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"><a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-at-feeder4.jpg"><img class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-5131" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-at-feeder4.jpg?w=150" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="150" height="112" /></a>Finished, Buddy sat a spell before he moseyed off. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"><a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-away2.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5133" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-away2.jpg?w=112" alt="bear away2" width="112" height="150" /></a></span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">Buddy returned for a second sniff and, finding none, wandered off again.<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-away.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-5132 size-thumbnail" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-away.jpg?w=112" alt="bear away" width="112" height="150" /></a></span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">Next day he came again. This time sniffing no food, he sauntered up to the rock outcropping above our house. We watched him from the large dining room window. </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">He watched us. We wondered if he thought we were in a people zoo. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">Eventually he traveled on.</span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">But Buddy returned a third day. </span>

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-in-flower-bed21.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-5136" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-in-flower-bed21.jpg?w=150" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="150" height="112" /></a>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"><a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-under-window.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5137" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-under-window.jpg?w=150" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="150" height="112" /></a>Finding the feeder gone. He decided to take a rest up next to the house. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"><a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-firecracker.jpg"><img class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-5134" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bear-firecracker.jpg?w=150" alt="bear firecracker" width="150" height="107" /></a>That was when my husband decided that Buddy was becoming too friendly and used one of our forest ranger provided firecrackers. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">The loud bang sent Buddy scurrying away. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">A fourth time, he ambled by, pausing mid-way up the hill and looking down, but kept going as if remembering the firecracker. (Bears are very smart and have great memories.)</span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">We’re hoping that the firecracker did its job. If you look closely, you'll noticed that Buddy has tags on both his ears. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">He’d been a very bad boy. </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">A bear is tagged and relocated from an area where he’s done some damage or been a threat to humans. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">Bears only get two chances. Third time the animal is destroyed. </span><span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;"> </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">We don’t want that to happen. They lived in this place first and we’re willing to share unless the visitor is very, very bad. </span>

<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:medium;">Btw, we never use firecrackers on our human house guests -- even if they are very, very bad.</span>