Good morning to all of you on this sunny Tuesday! There are some clouds around now, but it was completely clear earlier and it is still mostly sunny. But cold. We had frost last night, the temperature dipped to 30F (-1C), so there was frost all over. Even leaves were covered with frost. Last evening we had some rain, so my deck was wet and that meant it was icy this morning.

I was not expecting that, although I should have, and so I slipped, but not seriously. Still, it hurt my back a bit. But then later I went out again to set up a temporary feeder and completely forgot about the slippery deck, and… I slipped again, but worse this time. I did not fall, but with my back problems I do not need to fall to pull muscles. Which is what I did.

So now I am moving slow, or more precisely, slower than normal. Now, what led me to go out and put up the temporary feeder which meant hurting myself? We must go back a couple of days, to Sunday afternoon, or early evening depending on how you look at time. It was between 5 and 5:30pm and Muffin came running out of the bedroom and up to the deck window, then she backed away and looked over at me.

She was scared, and that could only mean one thing, a bear. So I go over to look and sure enough, there was a bear on the deck. A very large bear. And a female bear, she also had a cub with her. That kind of changes things just a bit around here. A female with a cub is something I do not want, but I cannot do anything about it. She broke the small hanging feeder I had out for the small birds. That makes 7 feeders in exactly 2 years. This is getting a bit annoying.

I opened the door to scare them away and the cub ran off quickly squawking. Mama bear did not seem to like that too much, she turned and snorted loudly at me, which is her way of warning me to be careful. Last night she returned and destroyed my main platform feeder, and the pole that was holding it. That is not good. Now I need to come up with a way to feed the birds until winter arrives, a way that will not attract the bears.

Once winter is here the bears will be in hibernation, so they are not a problem. Birds set up their winter feeding area this time of the year, so this is the time to start feeding. If I wait until winter arrives, I will not have many birds, chickadees and nuthatches will go elsewhere to find food. I really do not know what to do.

If I stop feeding, there are no birds which also hurts the photography part of things. But this also makes me think twice about walking to the river. She is one big bear, and she has a cub. If somehow I get in between the two, well, that is not so good, and it is something that could happen easily. But if I stop walking, that also hurts the photography part of things.

If we add it up, no feeding plus no walking plus no photography equals hurting my blogging. Sigh. There must be a solution, but I do not know what it is yet. However, I do not like to give up easily. Thank you for reading and listening to my little problems. Have a wonderful day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.