The Bear in My Yard
I've started carrying an axe handle when I go for my walk. The driveway is teardrop shaped, about an eighth of a mile long. I do the loop six times.
Trouble is, I live in a mountainous area. It's a rural setting. If it weren't for the clear-cutting of the forests and the other human incursions, the wild predators would normally stay away. There are bear, cougar and bobcats in the area. Normally we would not see them very often. This area was settled by pioneers in the 1800s and displaced the Native Americans. Pioneers planted orchards. Other people moved in in the meantime and also planted orchards and started raising chickens. The chickens attract the bobcats. The orchards attract the bear, when the apples are ripe. They start ripening at the end of September and falling to the ground. This attracts bear.
My husband is doing a wild turkey study. He has a trail camera. We saw one bear in the neighbor's orchard a month ago. A week ago the camera caught one in the middle of the night about 75 feet from our house. On November 14th and again on the 15th the camera caught the bear. This morning I noticed that all the apples that had been on the ground in the orchard for month or more were suddenly all gone. There are still some on the trees. Today I will shake the rest off of the trees, so the bear can eat them entirely and hopefully stop coming around. I already picked all I need.
As I result now when I take my walk, I carry an axe handle just in case a bear attacks me. Normally black bears don't bother people, but you can never trust wild predators. The turkeys gang up on the bobcat and chase them away...at least some of the time. It's usually the hen turkeys who do this.
See the picture below in another reply.