The bears came over the fence, from the trees, just between the two main houses where the woods meet the front yard and take over. We didn't do a lot of cutting out there, leaving it the way it is, keeping it natural. They climbed down one by one, loping across the front walk and coming down around the driveway to greet me as I collected some dishes from the studio and spent a few minutes talking with August, who was just getting in.
PJ saw them from the porch and didn't know I was in the driveway. He wanted to see their pattern so he didn't shoo them out, instead coming back inside and heading to the window in the side door off just down from the kitchen to track their route. He saw me drop a coffee mug to the bricks between the garage and the door just as I realized it was a mama bringing her babies to meet me (this being the baby from last year, or perhaps the year before).
I dropped everything when I saw him and ran. He burst out of the door, running toward me. I guess he thought I would freeze like a statue so we pretty much crashed into each other ten feet from the door and while we were landing hard the bears turned tail and headed back up the way they came, mama between them.
August and Caleb both heard the first dish break and were outside in time to see me scrape my hip nicely on the edge of the brick, a meat-crayon girl, which freaked me out because all I can think is that now we need to pressure-wash the stonework again or they'll smell my blood and come back. Caleb was more concerned with getting in the house right now immediately yesterday, since he probably feared I would follow the bears into the dark wood and come out feral once again.
(I only do that for wolves.)
My hip doesn't hurt this morning and further it was nicely bandaged by Lochlan when he got home, who gets further credit for going back out in the dark. He picked up all the broken pieces of stoneware, pressure washed a large area of driveway and then sprayed some bleach on it for good measure and then dug out all the extra electric fence netting we had left over, stored in the garage. Tomorrow they'll make the electric part higher in that area, just to discourage this new breach in our perfect fortress. It's misguided. I don't mind the wild animals, it's the domestic ones that you have to worry about.
