Rough 18 Hours

Keep Repeating: “I love the wildlife” “I love the wildlife”!

If you have never seen me in action, maybe Gene should make videos for my blog. I go at about 100 miles per hour from waking time at 6 am or so until 10 pm til midnight. If I hit the afternoon lull, I sit and drink a bottle of sugar free Bodyarmor. Not much sitting around time. Lots of steps and lots of talking to myself and to all the animals, domesticated and wild. Gene says the reason he ignores me is he is never sure I am talking to him. Since he works from home, two days per week upstairs, he says he sees me walking in the yard talking to myself. Sadly, the older I get the more active my ADHD is and I have to keep repeating what I am heading to do to keep from distracting myself. Of course, he knows I am outside because I have to tell him when I leave the house so if I am not back in the allotted time, he can come and get me up because I have fallen over something, (while not paying attention) and can’t get myself up. Last week it was over a railroad tie, he had told me plainly not to step up on because it would roll. I need a button. My button needs a silence button for when he talks back to say I told you so.

Yesterday, I had some tomatoes and other scraps that needed to go to the chickens and I needed to check on a new mama and her baby, so I grabbed my scrap bucket and headed to the chicken yard. Of course, the dogs followed me since they are always hopeful the bucket has something good for them to steal from the chickens. I passed the upper chicken yard since those normally get more scraps because they are closer and because the new mama was in the Taj Mahal Chicken House. I opened the door on to the chicken run for the Taj Mahal, and of course was chattering with all the chickens, put half of the scraps in one pan on one side of the run and then turned to put the rest in the other pan. That pan had me facing the woods behind the Taj Mahal. Beside the run, a bear came running across, jumped up on three rounds from the huge oak trees that fell and we just had cut up and removed. Up on the rounds and up a walnut tree. He went up maybe 6 or 7 feet, turned his head and looked at me. He was cute and young but closer than I needed.

Now realize I am standing in a wire enclosed run with the doors open on both ends. The door I just came through was open and since the days have been so hot I have been leaving the door on the other side of the Taj Mahal open as well as the door on the building that joins the run where I am standing with a bucket in my hand. I can normally see through the building while standing in the run. My brain is old but how can it process thoughts so fast! I am trying to decide, do I go inside the building and shut both doors and wait for Gene to come to look for me and find me dead from the heat inside the Taj Mahal and possible walk up on the bear as well, or do I go through the building and turn through the open gate into the yard and run, Run Like Hell or actually as fast as an old fat lady can run. Gene has told me in the past, I can’t out run a bear because he has seen me run. And I have told him in the past, he has never seen me run when being chased by a bear. I decided to run.

As I exited the building to head toward the open gate and yard, the bear was off the tree and heading for the woods, opposite direction from me, so I ran. Halfway across the yard, I met the three dogs waiting on me. I can’t believe the dogs had not followed me all the way to the chickens and walked up on the bear. I didn’t slow down much but I could tell from their reaction nothing was chasing me. They were just in shock I was running or am able to run.

I got to the house, told Gene there was a bear in the chicken yard and grabbed my phone to go back. Gene took the upper route thinking maybe he could see the bear without the bear seeing him. I went the lower route where I knew he had been. I was slow and careful. Gene didn’t think so. I had locked the dogs in the house. Gene joined me to ask where the bear had gone and about that time we spotted him in the edge of the woods across the chicken yard from us. Again, he stood up on a tree and went up a few feet, came down and went through the woods toward the neighbor.

Then the reenactment began and all the analyzing. I have to fully understand exactly what had just happened to me and why. And Gene has to fully understand just what situation I have gotten myself into and how on earth I got out of it again. I reenacted the entire thing. Standing in here dividing scraps and talking to chickens and here he ran by and up that tree and Gene is trying to figure out did he just hear you as he came through the yard gate and ran past? No Gene he ran right beside the building and the run and the chickens were out there and he apparently was with them and no one was upset or scared. They obviously do not see him as a predator. At least not at that point in time.

I had still not checked on new mama and baby so I go back in the building about the time Gene says uh oh and there is poor Mama Duck staring at her nest she had made in a bag of shavings and sat on for a long time. I had just counted eggs when I went out early and thought about how Gene was going to kill me if they all hatched. Egg shells everywhere and not one was missed. The Bear was in the building eating duck eggs while I was outside the open door talking with the chickens. I promised Mama Duck a new nest and some new eggs and we went back to the house.

Later in the day we picked up a load of chicken feed at Tractor Supply and Gene pulled his truck through the same gate I had exited earlier in the day to unload feed and Isaiah joined him. When I got out there, Gene escorted me into the Taj Mahal. The bear had been back and killed and completely devoured a hen inside the Taj Mahal while the other chickens and ducks watched, I guess. Gene left the carnage until I got there in case I needed to try to identify who had been killed. You know, put up crime scene tape, call the coroner, collect DNA evidence, etc. I asked him if he would get a shovel and remove the victim and I would just have to try to figure out which grey hen was missing since I obviously had no dental records to utilize. I needed to take a weak chick to the NICU in the house so I left them to unload the feed and clear the crime scene.

By the time I got back, Isaiah was exiting the vicinity, carrying Butternut, and fussing at me because if that bear hurts one of his pets he is going to shoot it. Gene met me to say “the bear is still here. See that chicken feed bag down next to the woods, I was carrying off the remains, when I thought to myself you know that bear could be up in one of these trees so I looked up and he is. See him up there”.

It appears either when Gene blew the horn on the truck in the yard to get Butternut, the cat, off the truck or when he drove the truck into the chicken lot, the bear went up a tree. What do we do now. Well, we do what we do. We did our regular chicken chores with the bear up in the tree watching us and Gene watching him. It appeared the bear was much more comfortable with us than we were with him. Everything I tried to do, Gene said please do not get eaten up by a bear. I think he was envisioning the carnage and how many chicken feed bags it was going to take to shovel up my remains. By now he has evaluated the situation and told me the run is probably safer than the building so maybe take locking myself in the building off my options list and stay in the run next time. NEXT TIME? By now I have realized the bear has eaten several eggs out of nest boxes, some fresh eggs and some eggs that would have hatched soon. I redistributed eggs among the expectant mothers and added some new eggs for some of the recently expectant mothers which took more time and fretted poor Gene.

Please understand we go out about 5 or 6 and feed and fill up waterers, I feed all the baby chicks and mamas, gather eggs, etc. Gene goes and helps me. He hates the chickens but helps anyways. Then we go back at dark and make sure everyone is shut up, even with automatic doors there is always someone who doesn’t go in before the door closes and has to be put up before the raccoons come to finish off any leftover chicken feed and delight in finding a chicken or duck outside. He goes with me then because it is summer and the bears are out and about. So now, we are thinking we have to come back out here.

We went back before it was dark. The bear was no longer in the tree. We moved one of the cameras so I could get photos all night if he came back. we moved baby chicks and mama into a more secure place and did the best we could to secure everyone. I fully expected carnage this morning. Gene has always said you can do what you can, but if a bear wants in, he is going in.. Not much sleep for this Chicken Mama.

Gene went with me this morning and no signs the bear tried anything during the night. Relief that maybe he has moved on until now. We went out to water the garden and gather tomatoes about 11:30 since it didn’t happen yesterday. According to my camera, at 7:19 am the body bag was still on the ground under the tree. At 10:39 am this morning the bag was moved, demolished, victim’s remains scattered, etc. And there were paw prints on the door of the Taj Mahal, the door I went through yesterday and footprints in the mud in front of the door.