Oh, yeah: bear alert

Some emboldened bear (black, pushy, hungry) has been nosing around people's porches in Ester. Don't leave your door unlatched! George Riley described to me the other evening how said bear came waltzing up (well, not really waltzing) his and Dianne's porch steps, knocking things over and looking for chow, while they were peering out the window at it. Well, the bear thought that was interesting, peered back in, and then tried to get in! Through the door, that is. George had to light some fireworks to get it to depart, which it did, heading directly over to the neighbors to check out their porch's goodies.

George was quite disgruntled: the bear was obviously habituated to a) people b) houses and c) garbage. He and I were in general agreement that bear-baiting is Stupid with a capital S, and this bear had either been baited or been hanging out around easily accessible trash. This makes a bear very very dangerous.

So--keep your garbage out of bear-paw reach, folks.