Things that Go Bump in the Night
 

No wonder the feeder keeps getting shredded! It's not far from our house and you can bet I won't be going out at night!!!!

OMG!!!

Oh what a woos! Just grab a gun and go for it! :biggrin: :evil:

Let him have the garbage .. just keep him away from the orchids!!! :yikes:

Not me!!!!!!! Be my luck to miss or wound and then where would I be? :hmm

OK great costume on that guy but what are you going as for Halloween?:biggrin:

I'd say, let him eat whatever his heart desires! Scary....

I'm with Ross....grab a gun.....bear sausage taste great! Yummmm!

Bear sausage added to the raccoon stew? Becca?

:coverlaugh:

Thats what double rifles are for!

Remove the food and he will go away. Simple as that. I use to hunt when I was growing up but have lost a taste for it and now I shoot animals using a camera!

:clap: I'm with you Dave! :biggrin:

I love the pic but I agree it's a little scary too!

You do not really want to leave food out for the animals. . .sooner or later. . .somebody is gonna get hurt. It's usually the animal.

Seems like to me, and I think this totally sucks, that the less animals have to do with us, humans, the better off and safer they remain.

While on the other hand, the more we spend time with and learn from animals, the better humans we become.

Wish things were different in this regard. . .

Oh my--yes, I would remove the feeder!

My parents are in NJ and they were having bear problems because of the bird feeder too. They had to stop feeding the birds, although the bears still pass through from time to time, as their property borders a state forest.

As a matter of fact, this summer when I was up visiting them, I was helping them plant some water lilies in their pond. I heard a creek behind me and turned around only to come very close to mama bear and her three cubs!!!!:_( Scared is a mild term for what I was.

I just went back to the deck and watched and she eventually wandered off with the cubs. They were adorable I must say, but thank god she didn't feel I was a threat. They are getting too used to humans.

Gwen, you are correct!

Our neighborhood is sort of a penninsula into Pike's National Forest so we have lots of animals moving through our yard. . .ur, their yard.

Bears, mountain lions, foxes, raccoons, bobcats, black squirrels with tall tufted ears, deer in the dozens, coyotes and bunnies.

And every once in a while you'll hear about a bear busting into someone's kitchen through a screen door or a bear opening an unlocked sliding glass door. . .they can smell the grape jelly in the cabinet, the trash under the sink. . .somebody gets surprised, gets slashed or gets shot.

Or I'll see a fox trotting through the yard with a big smile wrapped around an enormous hoggie roll bouncing around in their mouth. LOL

The biggest problem is that we're in the way of their food search, so when they find delicious things to eat, they associate us with the food. ..which they teach to each other and never forget. . that's about the time our relationship gets too close for either's safety.

But I soooo understand the desire to help them out. . .it's very nearly irresistable. But it's not the right way to help them. I don't like it but I truly believe this.

I agree, Gwen .. there have been cases of raccoons having rabies here on Long Island but there are far and few around me here .. we get the squirrels and song birds and occasional opossum. My sis feeds feral cats in her backyard and has had visits from raccoons and possum during the night .. now she only leaves the food out in the mornings. :)

This feeder is in a wooded area and not near any houses or towns ect. The land is owned by a paper company and leased to a deer hunting club.

There is no danger of the bear coming to houses looking for food and there are many such feeders in this hunting acreage.

So there's nothing to worry about with this particular one.

Hi Debs! It sounds like I live in an area similar to yours! Even though I live in a residential area of my town close to a main road there still places that people hunt at less than a mile from me. And they definately bait! Everyone that I know that hunts has at one time or another seen a bear out near a bait pile. I guess it's a little scary to know that bears are so close but I have never heard of anything bad happening around here. I think there are so many delicious piles of sugarbeets and carrots out there that they never bother with people (around here at least!). :biggrin:

My husband had some mountain lions stalking him and a friend once while hunting...he said it was pretty spooky....now we have one of em hanging in our living room...lol. I'll post a picture if any one requests me to....I guess if one was going to eat me for dinner to I would have to do the same....but I wouldn't purposely hunt for one like some people do....all kitties are just way to cute!

Hi Casey,
I live in Wolf Bayou, Arkansas. The sign doesn't even have the population listed, if that tells ya anything! :nod:

The only other house I can see is ours, too! It was my husband's grandparents house. We fixed it up as a rental but my husband's maternal grandmother wound up living there.

We have a cattle farm and grow Bermuda hay for our cattle and also sell it commercially when a drought doesn't dry it all up.

We drive 30 minutes one way just to go to town and then the only place to shop is a small Wal*Mart. Little Rock is 100 miles away!

Greers Ferry Lake is only about 15 miles from us, so there is lots of traffic through here.

But mostly it's just good ole country folk that hunt because they need and want the food.

I personally, would rather starve than kill anything. I love animals, all animals, but of course, especially cats! :biggrin:

Can you imagine these people's faces when they see my greenhouse (the only one in the county that I know of) and then find out I grow orchids!!! :scratchhead:

When my husband built it for me a couple years ago, the drug copters kept checking it out! :evil: Ain't life grand!

My husband used to work an early shift, so he was up early, around 4:00 AM, playing on the computer.

Insert dramatic reinactment:

Out of total silence comes the sound of a woman screaming in "mortal terror", under the raised deck, right next to the wall of our house!

My husband just about fell out his chair. . .scared the crapo out of him. Somebody is in terrible trouble! A second later it registered that it sounded kind of fake. . .too emotionless. If that makes sense. There was a strange breathy quality to it too, he said.

It was then that he knew he had heard his first puma booma.

I slept through the whole thing. :biggrin:

But we've heard them since, yowling at night. I love it and think it's coolio that they're so near.

Did you know that they can pounce something like eighteen feet? Just so you know. lol

Me too, I would hunt, if i had to but I do not want to ever have to. And I certainly would not trivialize it as just sport.

But it really doesn't bother me. . .my sense of rightness. . .for someone to hunt if they're gonna eat it. I really hate to see life wasted or for someone to do so, disrespectfully. It's no small thing to take a life.

And if it was trying to eat me or my hubby for lunch, that kitty is going down. :evil:

There was a lady that did just that recently, about a year ago I guess. Somewhere near Boulder, CO, a mountain lion grabbed her husband and was dragging him off. . .she beat the tar out of it and saved her husband's life. That cat did NOT want to let go. . .she had to use sticks and rocks and I think finally ended it with a BALLPOINT pin! If she hadn't been around, he'd have been a goner. :shock:

So. . .have a little respect. That's all I've got to say. :idea:

That's soooo funny about the drug copters! Nothing more suspicious than a greenhouse out in the middle of nowhere. . . growing something! ROFLOLOL

We have total respect for all animals....I see them and they are so beautiful....and the way mother nature made them to effortly live and climb around in areas that are hard for us humans to deal with. We never waste a thing....most of our grocery's come from our game meat....it makes me sick when I have to pay high retail prices for beef, even though it is good....and yes when you add up the cost of gas and sometimes taking time off from work and food and the proper clothing to keep warm....it does get expensive, but we are outside with mother nature enjoying ourselves hiking around. I just wanted to clarify that we do not sport hunt....and I have no desire to. We try to eat everything we get, fish, duck, goose, elk, deer, and bear.....with the deer and elk...we even try to bring home the liver if it is not destroyed....liver and onions are yummy! My husband also archery hunts as well....one of these days I will try it when I am confident I will not just harm and animal....so far I have been lucky to bring everything down with one shot very quickly...I don't want to have to see an animal suffer. That brings me to another reason for hunting....wildlife conservation.....if you live in over populated areas then many of the wildlife such as deer and elk will starve to death due to lack of enough habitat to support the wildlife population through the winter.....so I look at it as....meat in the freezer, and one less that will have to die from starvation slowely and painfully......thats just my two cents and I know not every one will share the same opinion....but don't forget what we are all here for......ORCHIDS!:cheer:

Hiya Becca,

Agreed! On all points.

Do you have to cook wild game really differently than grocery store meats? Does it taste "gamey"

You live a really different and interesting life! I love hearing about it. . .don't worry about opinions differing. That's what makes talking to each other so wonderful. I love to hear what people actually think. I could live a hundred years without hearing what other people say but don't really think. . .bo ho ho ho ho ho ring. lolol

I think it's sooo interesting to here where and how you guys all live! Debs greenhouse and the drug helicopters is too funny! It would be funny for the cops to come and you could show them all your pretty orchids. :evil:

Becca, my stepdad is an avid hunter and my parents have 80 some acres of land. My mom always uses venison in place of ground beef. It's better for you and a lot cheaper! I personally think it's more humane to go hunting versus going to the grocery and buying meat. Think, the animals get to live their life out in the wild instead of being crammed someone. I'm a vegetarian (personal preference not anything against meat) now but I used to love venison tenderloin cooked with onions. Yum Yum! I miss that...:biggrin:

Hi Gwen! To answer your questions.....you don't have to necessarily cook game meat differently then grocery store meat....we grill ours on the bbq if they are steaks and just use steak seasoning sprinkled on top....we have what can't be made into steaks made into lean hamburger meat which I make chili's and hamburger patties out of, or meatloafs. And we also have some made into jalapeno hotdogs. As far as "gamey" tasting...I think it depends on how a person cooks it, we find if you over cook it then it has more of the gamey flavor....and some of the regular hotdogs can have a gamey flavor too. But it also depends on what you bring home....such as a cow elk will not have the testosterone that bull elk have during the rut (the breading season) which can cause meat to be more gamey tasting. I put in for cow elk tags and doe tags....and well my hubby goes for the opposite because he his male.....and part of him wants a huge rack for the wall along with the meat...but he takes what he is given the opportunity for whether it has big antlers or little antlers. Oh....and it depends on the butcher as well....we found a place that makes killer bear sausage that goes great in biscuits and gravy and spaghetti sauce...yummy! ok...well that is the end of my book....sorry!

Bear sausage? :scratchhead: I'm nearly afraid to ask? :evil: