Wand'ring Thru Wayne & Pike County PA

Wild Card Wednesday – Grin And Bear It

Yes, I know, the title is silly. Sorry – it was the best I could do. At least I am posting this WildCard Wednesday blog is ON WEDNESDAY this week.

My home is not far from a very nice blueberry farm in Paupack (Pike County). Kind of cool – except, the bears think my back yard is their turnpike. I’m sure I’ll be blogging about the Paupack Blueberry Farm in the near future.

The bulky black fellow below was seen as I slaved away washed my dishes – my hands were soaking wet and I was scrambling to get my camera without destroying it before he disappeared into the woods. Who said bears are SLOW?

Yes, this is a horrible picture – I told you before that this feature doesn’t expect perfect pictures – just REAL ones. It was taken through my kitchen window one afternoon a few years ago. I’ve watched this guy, his momma, and other family members parade through my yard many times over the past several years.

Super Mindy-Dog is very brave and ferocious (from inside the house) when Buddy Bear (as I called him) passes by on his way home from whatever it is he did during his time away from the den. He was my buddy – sort of, from a distance – until he destroyed my custom built bird feeder and the hummingbird feeder, that is.

Then I stopped liking him, and classified him with the overgrown rodents deer – just another big huge furry, fat PEST.

Because I never leave food out for these guys, they usually just continue on to wherever it is they go, and sometimes they’ll stop and look at the house, as if to see if we’re watching them, or to remind me, that they really liked the sunflower seeds and the sweet hummingbird nectar I used to put out.

PA Black Bear Info

Generally, if we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone. NEVER feed them, and if they are in your area, it’s probably a good idea to only have bird feeders out when the bears are hibernating. They can quickly become very dangerous nuisances when humans attempt to intervene in their world (any further than we already have, that is).

In Florida, silly people feed alligators cause they’re just so darn cute…who can resist that smile?  The relatives of that Ohio family who toured Bonita Springs must live in PA, because we occasionally hear of damage wrought by bears attempting to get into people’s houses…

I’m reminded of an old Far Side cartoon – copyright laws prevent me from posting it – anyway, it showed a couple of bears in hard hats supervising the dumping of a sewer pipe in some guy’s living room as the startled human watched TV. The title was “Animal Waste Management Systems” or something like that.

And yes, I can ruin a joke just as well as I ruined the cartoon with my clumsy retelling. I wish Gary Larsen – who should never have retired – would just let me POST it….sigh. Thank heavens, I’m a better real estate agent than joke teller.

Filed under: WildCard Wednesdays. Tagged: | Karen's Wild Card Wednesday, PA Black Bears, Paupack blueberry farm