Bear Attack

Sometime in the middle of the night, a bear went over the mountain to see what he could see....and he saw my chickens! Lily and Wilson, who were inside sleeping with me, must have heard what was going on because they started to bark last night. Disgruntled at being woken, I told them to hush and go back to sleep, and unfortunately, they listened. When I went to let the chickens out this morning, I was greeted with a very discouraging sight - one side of the chicken pen had been completely crunched, and the dog crate which had been keeping our new, teenage chickens safely confined within the chicken pen while the older chickens got used to having them around was turned upside down. Miraculously, all of the chickens, old and new, were alive and well. The youngsters had all fallen out the bottom of the crate during the turmoil and were huddled in one corner of the mangled pen while the rest of the chickens were eyeing them suspiciously from the other side of the pen. The plastic barrel that we keep the chicken feed in was down the hill a-ways with fresh puncture wounds but was apparently strong enough to keep the bear out.

After surveying the damage in disbelief, and thanking God that no lives had been lost, I herded the traumatized chicks back into their crate and repaired the fencing as best I could. I thought the worst was over, but then I turned around and noticed the bee hive! The hive was structurally undamaged, but the various parts and pieces were upside down and strewn about. Thank goodness for Joe's mom, Lisa, (did I mention Joe is out of town for a week!!) who maintained perfect calm and bravely helped me put the hive back together. We both bundled up like we were going on an Arctic expedition and went in to the fray singing softly, whether to calm ourselves or the bees I don't know, but it certainly seemed to help. I sustained several stings on the back of my hand, but all in all not too bad.

All this and I had barely eaten breakfast! What a morning! Tonight the dog door is staying open and the chicks are sleeping on the porch. I will certainly not grumble at the dogs if they bark tonight! I somehow feel that we may have made it through this battle relatively unscathed, but I'm afraid we might not have seen the last of the bear. Here's hoping...