Camellia

[Dennis The Bus Dweller]

Hey Sharkey

Hows Camellia these days? Has she made her self at home on the ranch yet.

[Stealth Camper]

That is one cute little horse!

I have wanted to get a couple of draft horses to have for working around the farm. Would have to get some horse drawn equipment, though. And the farm.... am looking.

Also, there are always sled pulls at the local state fair that look like incredible fun.

[Sharkey]

Camellia has proven herself to be an easy keeper. I tie her out on a line during the day to eat down the grass in selected parts of the yard, and put her back in the pasture at night. Each of the areas she is tied in have her favorite scratching objects (trees, stumps, wind machine tower, picnic table, etc) while some areas are off limits for the same reasons (PV array is her favorite, not allowed!). These days, I will put the Rain Bird sprinkler where she can stand and get sprayed, helps with the flies and heat.

Last week, just at dusk, I wnet out to retrieve her from the edge of the yard out beyond the driveway, and she was "on alert", staring intently beyond the first tree line into a clearing behind. I heard a noise and saw a damned bear poking around not 60 yards away. I made a bunch of loud bear-shooing noises and clapped my hands, but it just dumbly kept sniffing the bush it was inspecting. That was all I needed, I took Camellia off her line and led her back to the pasture, where once released, she continued to concentrate her attention in the bear's general direction. What surprised me was that she wasn't freaked out, just alert. I interpreted it as "Oh there's a bear - again", so maybe they are acquainted.

[Dennis The Bus Dweller]

Im glad to hear she doing well in her new home. Yah know, She may just be a roughneck. Nothin like a girl with spunk

[Griff]

...I made a bunch of loud bear-shooing noises...

Hey Sharkey, can ya give me an audible on that "bear-shooing" noise?

...but it...kept sniffing the bush it was inspecting.

(Just wanna know which one to use in the future if I want a bear to gaf me off! )

[Stealth Camper]

Sister in law in east Tennessee always has a collection of "porch hounds" - dogs that have been dumped by owners out in the country, so they can "get back to nature". At one time there were several medium to large, including a beautiful black and tan hound.

Behind the house, up on the mountain a black bear had taken up residence, so when the dogs discovered this, they went after it. About 5 of them. Being city dogs for the most part, they did not do well. One never came back. Two came back later that day looking like they had taken a ride in a blender, and the other two came straggling back over the next 4 days. Also torn a new one...

The hound survived, with many new scars. They all learned a valuable lesson - bears are much more difficult to deal with than the mountain lion they had been used to tormenting before this.

The bear is still there and has had at least two babies over the last 6 or so years. The dogs are all gone and have been replaced by others.

[Dualfuel]

My "get the bear out of the veg oil tank farm" shooing sounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-v0O5gLdKo
Momma bears leave when I (the highest primate) show up. The teenager bears have to have a demonstration of exactly what happens when they linger in the vicinity of the paternal primate's offspring too long.
I'm not a GWH or a treehugger, I don't kill unnescarily, but I have peppered the back side of many a teenage black bear with #7 bird shot, and a 1 ounce slug as a bark chaser. My bears are smart and I have never had to kill any.