The purple nightshirt and the black bear OR the case of the malfunctioning gun...
We had gone to bed early that night a few years ago...just to be awakened around midnight by a sound out the bedroom window. We had fed the cats up on an old table to keep neighborhood dogs out of it. It was under the back carport to keep it out of the rain.
Well, we heard the noise, "crunch, crunch, crunch", and my husband got up, wearing just his nightshirt, and went out to investigate, thinking he'd have to run off someone's dog. I didn't get up for that, since all he'd have to do is yell at it to go home. It wasn't a dog. I'm laying there in bed, trying to go back to sleep when I hear my husband say through the open window, "Go on, bear. Go on!", telling me that it was a bear instead of a dog. Oh ok, I guess I'd better get up just in case a problem develops. Again, he yells, "Go on, bear. Git outa here!" The bear takes a step toward him, unwilling to give up the free dinner of the cat food on the table. He said next, "He's coming toward me, get the gun" as the bear steps closer toward him. One of the cats runs past the bear toward the garage to hide and the bear swipes a big paw at her and misses. She disappears safely under the truck. "Where is it???" "In the corner by the dresser!" I grabbed the gun and .... uh oh... I tell him "It's only a .22!" [Insert expletive here]
Husband says, through the window again, to get our son's gun in the closet. So I went into his side of the closet and grabbed the gun, ran out the bedroom down the hall, through the living room and out the back door with the gun in hand. He takes the gun, quickly brings back the slide, pulls the trigger to take a shot in the air (we just want to scare it away, not hurt it) "Click!" That's it! No BOOM! Just "Click!" [Insert another expletive here]
Uh oh! Both of us run back inside and slam the door shut. So we run to the gun cabinet, and get out the shot gun. Oh NO! No shells and no time to find them in the dark and in another room! In the meantime our youngest son, who is sleeping in a tent between the house the garage not far enough away from where the bear is, heard the yelling and decided to stay still inside the tent. Good idea, at least we knew where he was.
Husband grabs the other shotgun from the safe. Good, this one has shells with it. So he ran out the kitchen door, onto the porch, and the bear has stepped closer to son's tent. Husband yells at daughter to stay upstairs where it's safe. Too late, she had already made it down the stairs to see if she could help. With this yelling the bear moves toward the apple trees in the front yard. Then, in the dark, the bear moves into a shadowed area and husband loses sight of it. Daughter said, "he's over there" pointed in the direction of the apple trees. So, husband takes a shot in the air, the bear runs, jumps the fence and disappears into the woods. Daughter went back to bed, we went back to bed, and everyone goes back to sleep....
...Until 5:00 AM, when we heard "crunch, crunch, crunch". In the fracas, we hadn't moved the cat food! The bear had come back to finish his free meal! So husband grabbed the gun, made more noise, the bear ran back into the woods, and again he went back to bed.
In the morning, we moved the table, cat food and all, inside a small outbuilding and.... no more bear problems over cat food after that.
The sad part of the story is that it took 4 guns, just to find one to make enough noise to scare off the bear! Some homesteaders we are! LOL
Chicken soup and City Dudes -3 Tales
City Slicker #1
Dad was making chicken soup..... now when he makes chicken soup he starts from scratch, literally. We have managed to horrify, surprise, and basically shock more than one person when they found out the soup they are eating was walking around alive a few hours ago. My cousin, who is about 10 years younger than me, came into our kitchen and seeing an odd, something, in the sink asked me what it was. Now to be honest I almost decided to give him a normal explanation....almost..... I said "That is the last kid that mouthed off around here". For some strange reason he was rather respectful for the rest of the day.
City Slicker #2
Another cousin from Indiana came for a visit and, like our other cousin, she saw a dead chicken in the sink and asked me what it was. So I told her. She looked at me and said "Chicken. Yumm!". I believe she polished off at least 3 or 4 bowls of the finished product.
City Slicker #3
Yet another cousin invited me to go with her to visit a friend of hers in Utah, expenses paid, all I had to do was help with the kids and keep her awake while driving and since I had never been to Utah before I jumped at the chance. After we had been there a few days both of them started talking about how they make chicken soup, since both of them were around 25 or 26 at the time with young families they thought they were really home cooking when they used Swanson's broth. They then asked me how we make chicken soup at home.. Now I am a very honest person so I told them....Beginning with how Dad goes out and butchers a chicken all the way through making dumplings..... My cousin was slightly more prepared but even she stared at me and as to her friend.....she turned a lovely shade of green......
Aren't city people fun?
The Deer and the Assault on a Tomato Cage
We usually keep wire picked up and put away or thrown away as we don't want anything or anyone getting hurt on it. But husband neatly stacked my tomato cages in the far end of the garden for winter last fall, since there wasn't enough room for that many of them in the greenhouse this time. He had made me a bunch of them last spring because I planted more tomato plants than usual. Got more tomatoes, too :)
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