Ooooohhh That Smell

     I’m not talking about the wonderful scent of fall that is in the air but something far worse.  Yesterday morning when I went out onto the deck I caught a whiff of something very nasty.  There’s only one thing that smells that bad and it’s a black bear.

     Rugby quickly slipped past me and was off to the row of garbage and recycling bins alongside of our driveway.  He immediately put his nose to the ground and headed up the path towards our neighbors place.  A few seconds later and he was barking like I had never heard him bark before.  I walked down the stairs and saw the garbage had been tipped over and there was no bag inside of it anymore.  I knew what Rugby was barking at so I started up the trail.

     It was pretty dark out yet as I had gotten up right around 5:00 AM.  It was light enough for me to see what Rugby was barking at though.  There in the trail was a fairly small black bear sitting in a pile of my garbage.  It looked up at me and then continued eating.  That just bugs me when they do that; how dare they make a mess and then not even be ashamed of themselves?

     I picked Rugby up, told him to be quiet and then charged at the bear.  After a "huff" the black bear slowly walked into the woods and away from his breakfast.  I put Rugby inside and then proceeded to clean up the garbage so the bear didn’t have an excuse to return.

     I had two lodge units to clean so after I cleaned up the garbage I headed back up the deck to get to work.  Our guests had left some garbage as well as recyclables on the deck.  I figured I had better get that mess taken care of before the bear decided to return.  I went into one unit, got the garbage out, dumped it into the can outside and then proceeded to the next unit.  I came back out to the garbage with my hands full and began the process of sorting through it.  Glass in one container, tin in another, aluminum, plastic and garbage in yet another.  I had everything ready to haul down to the truck but wanted to bring the glass and aluminum into the lodge.   All that was left was the bag of garbage and the bag of plastics.

     About this time Mike appeared and asked me what Rugby had been barking at.  I told him the story, went back to the deck and to my astonishment both of my bags were no where to be seen.  There was no trail of litter, no paw prints and no bear to be seen.  I looked on a couple of paths into the woods and didn’t see any garbage.  "Hmmm, I thought.  Maybe Mike took them down for me."

     I was doubtful that Mike would have taken the garbage down and the next time I saw him he said he didn’t touch them.  I again looked in the woods searching for a trail of trash but saw nothing.  Later in the morning Rugby started barking in the store.  I opened the door and he took off towards the woods between our place and Riverside Cabin.  There it sat, little bear.  It quickly retreated into the woods and then I was able to find my missing garbage.

     Stinky had taken the bag all of the way into the woods before he started ripping into it.  There were plastic bottles strewn about, wrappers, tomatoes and trash all over the place.  The mystery had been solved and I could hear Stinky in the distance.

     I decided to try to deter him from returning so I charged at him and he ran away.  The nerve of that stinky coward.  I’m trying to keep all of the garbage safe and secure in hopes that I won’t see or smell that bear again.