dragonlady7

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so my parents were away this past weekend– had to hasten down to watch my older sister’s kids in MD, as the Nat’l Guard drill that was supposed to be virtual at the last minute turned out to be in-person and requiring both parents to attend, so.

Anyway. They came back Monday and found nothing amiss in particular, but this morning as they were organizing themselves and looking around they found a pumpkin had been taken off their porch and gnawed heavily and left in the driveway, which was slightly odd. Raccoons? IDK? Mom texted a photo to the family groupchat and we collectively decided it was either squirrels or a werewolf. “Moon’s a bit past full,” Dad commented, ever the naysayer.

Then Mom discovered that the bird feeders had all been profoundly emptied, and one of them torn down. That was… ambitious, for raccoons, which are not terribly large animals.

“Whoever it is maybe needs to work on their jack-o-lantern skills,” my older sister had commented, and I’d said “I support the werewolf’s artistic endeavors,” and then Dad said, “Since when are werewolves vegetarian?”

Then Dad remembered that a few years back us kids banded together and got him a trail camera, which he’d intended to use to track wildlife out on the back forty, but then he wound up instead setting up on one of the trees facing the house’s main entrance, and he’s just left it there for ages and never looks at it. He took it down and scrolled through the photos, and found a lot of photos of himself, and family members stopping by, and such. And then, this one:

[image description: a black and white image of a black bear walking across a driveway with the house faintly in the background, timestamped 3:47 am on October 6th] 2020

yeah so that’s a bear, cool cool cool cool. oh and also that happened after they came home. Neato! Great!

Not the first time they’ve had a bear on the porch; it’s why the birdseed is stored in metal garbage cans chained in place and bungeed securely shut.