Just rambling

This is about the time of year when the black bears put in an appearance. I have to be very cautious when I go to let the hens out early in the morning. I remember a few years back, every morning there was a lot more than usual amount of bear poop around. We found this a little disturbing so decided to call Wildlife to see what we could do about it, (the bears not the poop.) Two wildlife officers showed up and after viewing the situation said they would have to put a live trap on the front lawn. Next thing they were back in a big truck hauling a massive big barrel like thing. We had to take part of the fence down to get this on the property. Once they had it off the truck, I demanded that they show me how it worked as I wanted to make sure the bear or bears wouldn't get hurt. I was told that the bear would go inside and the weight of the creature would trip a spring and the door would shut. I was to call immediately, anytime day or night, if this happened, and they would come and take the bear off in the country and let it go. Then they proceeded to put cake, cookies, molasses, etc in the barrel. They said any bear within a few klms would smell this and go inside, I thought that was rather amazing. They also told me, if it has been trapped before there was no way it would go inside the barrel no matter how many treats were there. So for three days this contraption sat on the lawn and we were waking up during the night thinking we heard a door shut. Alas, it was all to no avail, no bear in the barrel. Wildlife came and took the trap away and we continued to clean up the poop each morning until the bears decided to move off further into the country.