I gave up on worrying about bugs camping with the kids so much.
What still gives me pause (but not nearly enough to insure self-preservation) are the bears. I have a family living behind me including 3 juveniles and a big loner up in the woods on the other side of the street. They like my backyard and my garbage can. Although they’re really not happy with the kids being out of the house and many weeks we have only 1 kitchen garbage bag in the can on Saturday
Last weekend I was working in the backyard and heard a noise in the front. I had been sawing (circular saw) and drilling so I didn’t think it was an animal…but went to the fence separating the driveway from the backyard and there was the big bear wrestling with the garbage can. He was seriously not happy with the rubber hooked strap keeping one side of the lid down.
I grabbed my camera and went out into the driveway to get his picture. Yelled at him, waved my arms, etc. He just looked at me and kept trying to wrestle his way into the can.
Then I realized, he’s nearly 6 ft tall and a boatload heavier than me, and look at those claws!
So I got in the car and backed it up next to him. Blew the horn. A lot. Still didn’t move. Drove closer to where I could drop the window and reach out if I wanted (I did decide that was probably stupid). He finally backed off. Took him 3 or 4 minutes of slowly slinking back and me not moving to where he finally gave up and crossed the street. Waited for the cars to go by and everything
I shouldn’t be doing that - bears can be mean and they can peel a car door open too.
Something about being in the safety of your home vs out in the wild makes us do dumb things.
That would be super-cool. We’d be a hit at MakerFaires - bet no one would be worried I had a Class IV laser
I won’t put the garbage can in the garage because we usually keep the garage door open when we’re home and don’t want to encourage them to come in that far…then it’s only steps into the house…and because if they can smell it from the driveway, they could get through the garage door. Better to sacrifice the can than a 16’ long door.
Funny but my wife grew up in a city. Never saw much wildlife. I move her to the suburbs and in the woods and she thinks they’re all Disney characters. She’d go up to a momma & cubs if I didn’t drag her away. Heck, she feeds the deer during the winter so they don’t go hungry (and then complains about ticks all summer).
I am in the suburbs on the NW side of LA county. We have bears wandering down into our neighborhood from time to time, too, but it’s mostly rabbits, raccoons, coyote, opposum, and deer. The raccoons worry me about getting into stuff. They are mean critters.
That’s one critter I’m glad we don’t have to deal with. I’ll take gators over bears any day. (With those, staying out of the water and off the banks is usually adequate protection. Some people don’t realize that a gator can outrun them though - we do get a few accidents.)
well, they can outrun you in a straight line, they’re very fast. but they can’t turn.
also, they’re just as likely to run like hell the other way as you are. we’re not their prey. just stay away from their nests. i grew up on the chain of lakes in winter park, saw tons of alligators, never worried about them. maybe i might have if i had a small dog or cat, but i always had big dogs.
in florida, i paid a whole lot more attention to snakes than to alligators. lots of venomous snakes in florida. saw plenty of diamondbacks, coral snakes, etc when I was out in the groves and on scouting / camping trips.
6.8 miles from my old house. I never saw a bear at my place… but did see tracks.
Only 2.3 miles from the wedding I attended at my buddy’s place earlier this month. He had a bear break into a subaru for an old half of a burrito that had gotten left in the rear footwell. Another one broke into his camper and ate a tube of toothpaste.
Granted, though, that this is an area that is backed up against massive amounts of open space, wilderness area, blm, forest service and national park lands. I’ll be honest, I was more afraid of the moose.
(They have stopped manufacturing antivenin for coral snakes, but the toxin will generally kill you very slowly…over several days. So I saved one, in case I need to get some made up quickly.)
I go beyond boy scout.
(It’s also a good reminder to watch what I lean up against outside.)
