DA BEARZ!

I've taken a break from alternating between bashing my own head with a frying pan and flushing it in the toilet, to post. Has anyone ever felt the indescribable guilt, helplessness, and..I can't even find a third word to describe....unintentionally hurting your kid?

Yesterday I accidentally discharged a blast of pepper spray into the air and it blew onto Lo.

Let's backtrack:
Tuesday evening. I'm sitting on the potty doin' my bidness and I hear...something...fall down/ crash? Maybe from downstairs or outside?

"What was that?!", I yell out.

"I don't knoooooooow!", Dea sing-songs.

Back door is opened...And immediately slammed shut!

"Black bear in the back yard!!!!!!" ,Dea is shouting. "By the back door!!"

I cut myself off midstream -girls can do that, ya know!-and barely have my jeans pulled up as I burst through the bathroom door to look out the back door window. Of course I missed him. He took off when Dea "scared" him. The crash was our overturned recycle bin for the "CANS". We picked them up making note that we really need to clean them out more thoroughly with soap and water before throwing them in the bin. Dea banged some pots and we all yelled just to be sure he was gone. It was like New Years Eve 1979.

"Mommy? You have a little wet spot on your pants!"

After my shower we resumed watching The Big Lebowski(One of my top 5 favs!).

When it ended , before going to bed we took a peek outside. To secure the perimeter, if you will. Now the bin was in shreds and the cans are back out all over the ground. We put the other bins in the garage.

Goes to show you what a great home theater system we have! Never heard a thing while a black bear was Go 2 Sleep-ing our CAN bin. The upsetting thing is that he came back so soon after we made a ruckus the first time. And then returned the next day while I was at work. Lo was at a friends but Dea was home and called huz to tell him that she saw the bear heading up into the back yard. Then she saw him again going down the driveway. And where the hell is my dog during all of this?!?!? Oh, well. The guy's old. Moose walk buy him and he doesn't care. Just lies there with one eye open.

Yesterday was the first time since I've lived here that I ever felt like I had to look both ways before venturing from the house. And it was the first time I ever carried the pepper spray to walk down the street. And that really sucks. But, realistically, as far as neighborhood bears go, there are more urban areas like Anchorage that get far more visits then we do. Despite the fact that we live up in the Chugach range, right in bear country. I guess there is more to attract them in urban places. Namely, trash. Many people up in our valley don't have cans full of trash at the end of their driveway just calling to the bears. We haul it down to the landfill ourselves.

I really do not want to live in fear of wild life here. I'm thinking that this new trepidation is a result of all the bears we encountered at the Russian River(scroll to bottom). Dea has pics and video of a few more that she took when she stayed a couple extra days to camp with our neighbors. Then there was that mama moose who charged Lo, her friend, L, and I a couple weeks ago.

And the fact that despite the noise and activity, they all still hung around. It gets scary when these animals are desensitized to humans. That mama moose has been bringing her babies to our property for a few years now. We call her scarface due to the long scar on her side. Why scar"FACE", I dont know.
When she charged us the kids and I had been up in the playgarden screaming, yelling, laughing... We had walked over to examine a cluster of alder about 20 feet from the playgarden. I had noticed that a lot of bark had been stripped off by moose. The kids were climbing on the branches when I turned to get my camera by the swing set. There was mama and baby walking toward us! And she wanted to pass that cluster of alder for some reason. I slowly sidestepped back into the cluster of branches-I saw the ears go back- I grabbed a kid under each arm and pushed as far back into the branches as I could as she charged forward.

(I later took this picture to show our vantage point)

She stopped and I whispered for the kids to not move or make a sound. I could feel their little hearts beating in my hands. Usually, if you can't run from a moose you raise up as BIG as you can , flail your arms, and holler at it. There was nowhere to run but my gut told me not to play big. Just then , Niko the hero dog, made his appearance. Remember that big muscled bulldog from Buggs Bunny? The way his little stick lower legs carried that big upper body as he strutted around? That was Niko. He was like,"Yo! Scarface! What the HELL do you think you're doing to my people?" Mama hunkers down and just bores past the alder chasing Niko into the neighbor's yard. Baby runs off in the opposite direction. Great. We wait for Mama to come back past the alder to seek out her little one and then we exit, stage left.

So now it's yesterday and Dea has to walk down the street to the neighbors to water their flowers while they are away. Poor kid is all creeped out now so Lo and I and the bear spray accompany her. My big mistake was taking the safty clip off the "trigger" of the bear spray. While Dea waters, Lo and I run and dance on the grass. Niko shows up to join us for some "chase me- I'm a puppy still!". I'm chasing him when my foot slips on the wet grass. The bear spray, which I'm still holding with finger at the ready, shoots off a blast as my hands clench in reaction to bracing my fall. Only a millisecond but enough to belch forth a red cloud. It shot out in the opposite direction from Lo who was standing about 15 feet away. But it was really windy and blew it back at us. I imediatly yelled a bunch of stuff like"Lo! Close your eyes tight NOW! Close your mouth! Run to Dea! Put your hands over your face!" Too late. As I'm steering her toward Dea and the hose, she's screaming. She got just enough to burn her eyes, mouth and skin. She's coughing and panicking. I grab the hose and am shocked that Lo is totally willing to open her eyes and let me spray her face. It was horrible. Not only was she hurting and panicked, but dumbfounded and PISSED! Between screams and me pulling her dress off she forced out,"you didn't have to do that!" and,"you could have waited for me and Dea to go inside!" My heart was just crushed. I wanted to dig a hole and bury my head in it. I caused my little girl to be hurting and frightened. I feel sick just writing about this. I told her over and over that I didn't mean it, it was an accident, I was so sorry, Mommy would NEVER EVER hurt you on purpose. I wrapped her in my coat as we waited for Dea to come back with the keys. We took her inside the neighbor's house and got her in the shower. Dea pointed out the number on the bear spray to call if someone gets hit with it by accident. We switch and I go call the fucktard of the century. After a hundred years of waiting for this hick

to get his shite together, he basically tells me exactly what it says on the can. Oh, and "Well, at least you know the stuff works on little girls!"

I shite you NOT.

Meanwhile, super big sister has calmed Lo down and has her laughing. I take over and finish up. I wrap her in a warm towel and hold her my arms, apologizing. Lo tells me "You didn't mean to, Mommy. It was an accident." And I'm just bawling. My Dea tells me it's OK and puts her arms around me. Lo tilts my head to give me a kiss on the forehead. We pack up and head home.

ALWAYS keep the saftey clip on the trigger.

We've have always been very respectful of the moose in our yard and exercised a healthy caution for both moose and bears when outside. Watching quietly from a safe distance-NEVER feeding. Now I need to do a little research and find out if it's just better to scare them when we see them(from a safe distance , of course. Like, from the kitchen window!). What we WILL do is have a family sit down and re-teach and discuss bear and moose behavior, what to do if encountering them, and what precautions to take to be safe when out on the property. It looks like we may have to whack down all the long grasses and fireweed out back. That would be so sad but moose sometimes make their beds out there-you'll find a big flattened spot like a mini crop-circle. The kids have always liked to lay down in them. And, a bear could sit unseen but very close by. We'll have to wait and see. We've got a dialogue going with all the neighbors so we can keep abreast of bear travel . We'll check out the property for bear scat and beds to determine if this bear is a "nuisance bear" warranting "relocation" or just a guy passing through to the next valley where the Salmon are. Should we just move? Hell no. Why should we? To only replace this kind of danger with some other kind of danger? You're immune to it NOWHERE. I won't live in fear, just caution and we will teach our kids the same. Wildlife is part of our world. One of the many reasons we live here in this magnificent place.

~sigh~It's been one HELL of a week yet, huh?!!