Nighttime Visitors

Here is a smart true story.

Not far from us is a rustic deer camp.  

It is a membership only place (hunt club), and there is an old mountain cabin with bunks and fireplace kitchen and huge acreage to hunt on.  

In the evenings the hunters do just that, sit around and shoot the breeze etc.  A bear found them there and they thought it humorous to toss out left over steak etc to the bear.  This went on for a week or so.  

Then they went out hunting one morning and came back and the bear had broken into the cabin and taken the entire fridge.  They found it in the woods about 200 feet from the cabin, torn open and the food all gone through and devoured.

Edited to add: The largest bears in the USA (other than Kodiacs) are on the East Coast near the Great Dismal Swamp in VA and toward the Outer Banks in NC.  Our bears are smaller here, the avg bear is 350-400 lbs.  Some males can be bigger 500 lbs.  So multiply your own weight by that and see how big these dudes are!  Silly hunters.

What is the record weight of an American black bear?
The world record weight for an American black bear is 880 pounds. This was the recorded weight of a 10.75 year-old male bear shot in North Carolina in November 1998.

My dog ran after a bear yesterday morning. Now she's limping. She didn't catch up to the bear, but she's getting arthritic and we've got her on pills and a diet to lose a few pounds. I'm just glad the bear runs faster than our dog!

 Clementine thinks she is a panther.

Our 3 Maltese ate mice poison on Saturday.  Not good.  They are all still alive but they could take a turn for the worst up to a week later.  So here is hoping that they all pull through. 

Yup I feel you about cats, we had feral cats on the property--and they kept the little mice at bay, but damn these rats looked bigger than the cats. Yup with the poison you just don't know where they will die, and we had a few go in the basement, thankfully it didn't really stink up the place. DH just removed them cause I WAS NOT GOING THERE!

we saw a rat so put out poisen trouble was it ate the poisen and then went under next doors floor (we are in a terrace) to die the smell was terrible and they had to pull up all the floor in their restaurant to get it out. Felt awful!

welcome back AR..when we had our WV B&B we were in the country and had all kinds of vermints. One year it was RIVER RATS...ok we disposed of them quickly...thankfully it was in winter and we had no guests. I've never seen rats that big, they took over the chipmonk holes and it was just disgusting. DH had to pioson them,tried the traps but did you know that rats are smarter than mice? They will actually go around a trap several times in several days before they attempt to get the food in it. Poison seems much better.

It wasn't because of trash or crap-we had a creek right accross the street and apparently they just ventured into our property. We never saw them after DH took care of them with poison...took about a couple weeks-that is worse than a possum or anything else.

Our dog got sprayed by a skunk a few years ago right outside our door. The smell was so terrible the guests couldn't stay. Months later I swear I could still smell skunk when I opened a closet door. 

 Domsmom I was told to try this with animals in the attic - get a boombox or speakers and open the attic, place it inside and blast the music as loud as you can and the critter will find its way back out the way it came in.

 Welcome back Arkie!

And I have had racoons in my attic....ugghhhh....don't these varmits know where they are suppose to live ??  LOL

Dang it, those weren't feral hogs. They were loyal Arkansas Razorbacks, sent by me to give you a big Arkansas howdy. Sorry they messed with your yard.  They always get into the tequila when they go to Texas. Helps them live with the regular drubbings from those longhorns.

Count your blessings, Gillumhouse. We have a resident skunk. Believe it or not, this has been a sort of blessing. Lots of wildlife (coyotes, possum, raccoons) and stray dogs here, even in town. We woke up one night to hear an INCREDIBLY loud fight between something very scary sounding and our friend Jimmy Skunk. I was up (goodness, we all were) and I put on all the outside lights, but the scary sounding animal didn't scare. Jimmy Skunk took care of it for me (guess how we knew), and we haven't had a problem like that since. With the exception of one armadillo, we are given a wide berth.

BUT - Jimmy Skunk, whom we have espied on the occasional early morning, is aDORable. I mean, I'm not kidding. He's cute and cuddly, and toodles about his business. I find this quite worrisome. There have been some VERY stern discussions with the Innkeepers' children to STAY AWAY...but I sometimes worry our guests might not have quite as much sense. At least he's nocturnal and earning his keep, keeping the scari-er varmints away.

Gee, and all I get are possums dying by my clotheslines and groundhogs under my house!

This morning we woke up to a bat hanging upside down in the middle of our living room! We got it out before any guest saw (I hope!). They can squeeze in to a small crack under a door. Ahhhh....the joys of country living!

My mom in FL is having armadillo visits too....here it's just the freakin' MOLES and gophers.