Rising prices are hard to bear
(Originally published in March 2021, during a period of especially high inflation and shortly after a rash of backyard bear visits in the area.)
Inflation is crazy right now. As expected, it’s hitting groceries and gas. I had no idea, however, that the cost of bears would go up so much.
To clarify, I don’t mean the cost of buying a bear. I don’t even know what the going rate for bears is these days. Anyway, if I needed a bear, I’d just rent one; I can’t see getting one for keeps. Where would we store it?
No, I’m talking about the indirect cost of bears.
Every spring, some local black bear emerges from hibernation and makes the rounds in Middlebury. We’ve had a few visits over the years.
Usually, the bear climbs our back porch and helps itself to the contents of the bird feeder. Then, much to the consternation of the chickadees—and several morbidly obese gray squirrels—we put the feeder away. The annual cost: a dollar’s worth of sunflower seeds.
Last year, the bear carried the feeder off to the side yard and cracked it open like a lobster, the better to get to the good bits inside. That set us back about $25.
But this year has been the most expensive by far. The bear emptied our feeder one night, so we took the feeder down. Returning the next night and finding no seeds, the bear looked around until it hit literal pay dirt: the compost bin.
Made of heavy plastic, the bin is a cube three feet across at the bottom, tapering slightly toward the top. Ours was nearly full, containing a year’s worth of decomposing food scraps and coffee grounds and such.
I have concerns about the design of this bin. The lid can be held down with two knobs, presumably to keep animals out. However, the frame of the bin is not attached to the base. According to the assembly instructions, this is so that, once the compost has broken down, you can just slide the frame up and off for easy access to the contents.
The bear, not caring to fiddle with the knobs on the lid, did just this, the way one might lift the glass dome off a roasted pheasant. Tossing the frame aside, it then pawed through the pile as if partaking in a half-rotten all-you-can-eat buffet.
“Returning the next night and finding no seeds, the bear looked around until it hit literal pay dirt: the compost bin.”
To be fair, the compost was due for a good turning, so I wasn’t even mad. But I didn’t notice all this had happened until two days after the fact.
Our dog, however, had discovered it right away and forgotten to mention it to us. So for two days he had been indulging in a secret smorgasbord of 2021 leftovers.
He understands now why this was a bad idea.
Soon, he went off his regular food. He began to slink around the house, his head hung low, his tail between his legs, his belly distended. He threw up a couple of times. He had the demeanor of someone with a hangover who vows never to drink again.
He wasn’t getting better. So off we went to the vet for X-rays to determine whether he might have a chicken bone stuck in his gut. The vet saw no blockages. But when the dog didn’t improve, we went back for more X-rays.
The bear returned the next night to dismantle the compost bin again, after I had spent 20 minutes that day shoveling wet former foodstuffs back into it. The dog, at least, expressed no interest in loading up another plate.
He is slowly recovering, having been diagnosed with a combination of pancreatitis and regret.
The bear has now flipped the compost three times. I’ve started dumping my kitchen scraps in a five-gallon pail in the locked chicken coop. This is not only for the dog’s safety but also because I am sick of shoveling the remains of last year’s Thanksgiving dinner off the lawn each morning.
I’m conflicted. Having a bear in one’s yard is trendy right now. All the cool people on the east side of Middlebury are doing it.
But we’ll have to pay to replace the compost bin, which no longer resembles a cube or any other polyhedron. Even worse, the vet bill has topped $850. As much as I’d like to keep up with the Joneses, we just can’t afford such a lavish lifestyle.
If the cost of bears keeps going up at this rate, we’re going to have to look into alternative nuisance animals for the yard. They’re not as flashy, but next year we may have to switch to raccoons.
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