You won't believe this, but there was ANOTHER bear in the yard and this one was ENORMOUS. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a picture because it was night. (This one is an approximation I pulled off the web.) We came home late and I was puttering in the kitchen when I heard some loudish crashing noises outside. Thinking it was G, I called out to him but he was in the bedroom, on the other side of the house! He immediately ran over with the night-vision goggles (the best birthday present I ever got him) and spied a huge bear UP IN THE TREE behind our house. It was trying to pry open our metal bird-feeder to get at the black sunflower seeds we've since learned are a bear favorite. (The feeder is now dismantled. Sorry, Tweety.) Then I looked through the goggles and was TERRIFIED! The bear was looking right at me and, because of the night vision, his eyes were like big green saucers. My heart was pounding and it didn't help that the sister-in-law was giving me a blow-by-blow over the phone of how a bear broke into David Letterman's house and ripped the door off his fridge. WTF? Our house started to feel like a cardboard shack. G said the bear was over 7 feet tall!!! But eventually it scrambled down and lumbered away, and later I fell so sound asleep I didn't even hear it come back in the middle of the night. Good thing G stays on the alert...
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I was minding my own business, sitting in my little study, and happened to glance out the window in time to see this dude ambling across the lawn. Naturally my heart began to pound like mad! I was actually on the phone at the time (with a client) but threw it down and went charging to the front door with my iphone. I actually opened the door and stepped out as I wanted to get a good shot for G (diehard bear fan, I knew he would be crushed to miss this) and the bear—a teen, and male, I think, for no good reason—locked eyes with me and froze for a good 30 seconds before turning and loping down the hill. I'm not ashamed to say I was deeply thrilled.
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