Thanksgiving Gathering

We had a snowy Thanksgiving this year but the weather didn't keep any of our guests away.
We were fifteen at a very long table that extended into the living room.

Even though we took pictures from each direction we weren't able to get everyone in the picture. Jim took this picture and I took the previous one.

Trenton and Oliver had a great time playing with their second cousins. Peter, Bryan, Chrysanne, Trenton and Oliver played with toys that were new for Peter!

Now that's one happy Greatgrandma.

Bear

I received a frantic call from John while I was driving home from ShopRite yesterday just before 4 PM. He was looking for the camera's memory card but I had it with me to print some pictures. Luckily he was able to find the spare in the case. Why the urgency? There was a bear in our backyard!

A minute earlier Jason was in his room when he looked out the front window and noticed that a car was stopped at the end of our driveway. The people were looking towards our backyard so Jason went to the door to the deck and spotted the bear. John's used to receiving our reports on backyard wildlife sightings but usually we just say, "There are some deer eating pumpkins" or "there's a squirrel on the obstacle course." This time Jason said, "There's a bear in the backyard!" Just then a neighbor called to say a bear was headed our way and John told her "it's already here!" Then began the mad dash for the camera.
As I started to pull down the driveway a few minutes later I noticed that John was not waving to me from his chair near the window so I surmised that they might still be looking at the bear. I parked part-way down the driveway and went in the front door and found them taking pictures from our bedroom window with the storm window up.

What fun it was to watch it feast on peanuts. You could hear it breathing and chewing.

The peanut feeder is supported by a pipe which the bear easily bent over.

After finishing the peanuts it started looking around for something else to eat. This platform is just a wobbly disk so it then moved on to look up at the bird feeders which are now hanging from fishing line off the deck to prevent raccoons from getting at them. It climbed up the corner of the deck! We didn't want it on the deck so John opened the sliding door but all it did was look at John! John made some noise and the bear dropped back to the ground. Then it wandered around back near the boat and then to our neighbor's. I called the neighbor because I knew she'd just been outside with her two girls. I left a voice mail about the bear but he didn't linger, he headed out into the woods. A few minutes later a caravan of cars came down the road driving slowly and looking out back. People must have been following the bear's travels. It was probably a young male, about 150 lbs. We were happy to be home to take pictures and to prevent more damage!