A few weeks ago I had put some gloppy leftovers in a plastic container outside overnight for the woodsy animals, and was irritated the next morning when it was gone. I wondered if it had blown down on the river bank, but couldn't find it anywhere, and decided maybe one of the animals had carried it off.

Last night I had some more gloppy leftovers. I don't like to dump them out on the dirt, although watching the fox eat, a little dirt doesn't bother him. So I put out another plastic container, closer to the house so it couldn't blow into the river, and I'll be darned if it was gone this morning. Where could it be?

I got the answer when I saw that the trash can over by the fishing parking - dumped out and the trash strewn around: the bear was here. Fortunately there wasn't much trash in there, just one lunch's worth of sandwich wrappings and potato chip bags from last week's fishermen.




We don't put out our house trash until trash day because of the bears. If they don't rip open the bags on the spot and scatter the contents around, they sometimes carry them off to go through later, so a big mess could appear up on the side of the mountain.

This is the time of year when the bears are storing up calories in preparation for the winter hibernation. They don't always come around at night, either. A few years ago the bear was here around 8 in the morning. He was pulling down the hummingbird feeders and squeezing them to get out the juice.





He carried one of the feeders onto the bridge and abandoned it there.




If you look closely, you can see a downed bird feeder in the grass.
But I still wish the bear would have licked out the bowl and left it behind.