Day 137

I think the world is divided into two groups of people; those that are good in a crisis and those that aren’t.  I fall firmly in the latter group.   I know this about myself, I have proven it time and time again.   But it is not always possible to completely avoid emergencies.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at our mountain cabin with my friend Nicole and all of our kids.   One evening after the kids were asleep,  my happy go lucky lab suddenly starts to growl.  A growl I’d never heard from him before, a feral spine chilling warning growl.  He then stood at the side door and went completely berserk barking and growling.  Of course my first thought was, he’s going to wake the kids up.

Then the door handle rattled.

AHHHHHHHHH, Oh my goodness, Oh no (while hopping up and down).  Then I inexplicably bolted for the kids rooms and turned on the lights.  Later, my friend asked exactly why I felt the need to turn on the lights at that moment.  A good question, one for which I had no good answer.

Then I called 9-1-1.

After listening to me shriek, the operator said, “Are you able to go to the window and look outside to see if it might be a bear?”

So, I said, “Just a minute.”

Then I looked at  Nicole and said, “She wants you to go look out the window and see if it’s a bear”

AND SHE DID IT.  She peered into the darkness and said, “Well, I can’t see anything.  Actually, I don’t see the trash storage shed that was adjacent to the porch at all.”  Hmmm, who would have stolen the trash shed?

About that time, a sheriff’s deputy pulled into the driveway.   We peeked outside just in time to see him shine a big searchlight toward the side of the house to reveal a…

B-B-B-B –BEAR!!!! 

All 500 or so pounds of him,  ten feet away snacking right out of the splintered remnants of the trash shed that he had shoved off the porch, which on impact had apparently exploded creating a veritable bear buffet.

The deputy shouted, “in the house, in the house.”

Immediately we ran in the house, slammed the door and locked it for good measure.

Knock, knock…”Me, too”, comes a muffled cry from the poor guy on the other side of the door.

Oh, right, sorry about that. (I swear to you, I am not making this up)

Eventually, the bear got his fill and ambled off and Nicole and I got a do-not-feed-the-bears lecture (as if that was our intent).

When I told Kayla, my nine-year-old the story, she looked at me and said, “We need to buy one of those bear proof trashcans like they have at the parks.”

…sigh…

Well, before the Simple Year, I would have marched right down to the local bear proof trash can store as soon as I possibly could.  But, that wasn’t an option now.   So, my temporary solution was to keep all of the trash inside, which for obvious reasons was not going to work for the long term. Plus, we use the house as a vacation rental; and I’m pretty sure our reviews on TripAdvisor would suffer if bears keep eating our guest’s trash.

So, as it happens, I already had a handy man scheduled to do some work for us.   He is a man of few words, glanced at the mess and simply said, “I can fix that.”  When I asked how were were going to keep the bear from destroying it again, “I’ll sink posts in concrete and attach the shed to that. ”

What do you know? I think I was so focused on a solution that involved buying something, I hadn’t even considered other alternatives.  It took another person’s idea to redirect me.

Here is how it turned out.

 

As is often the case with repairs these days, the work cost slightly more than a new bear trash can, but not only is it in line with The Simple Year’s rules, I think, more aesthetically pleasing.    Cross your fingers this one holds.