What Not to do with a Bear

This summer, there have been a few signs that there is a small black bear in the area. Then last week early Friday morning, Steve Mader saw him heading toward what we call the Curry side of the ranch (also our summer campsite on the ranch). Later that morning, three of the kids saw him in the archery field while horseback riding. So, that afternoon, what did they do? Yep, 4 of them took off with their BEE BEE guns to find the BEAR. Now, I don't know about you, but when I know/think that a bear in anywhere near, I go the other way. I guess that's where me and 4 little, 9-12 year old boys differ (I hope that there are other ways as well!). Nash saw it first, but everyone else just thought it was a rock (they say that they were not looking at the actual bear at first, but something else that they thought Nash was pointing to). Eventually, after shooting that direction with their sling shots and bee bee guns, the rest of them realized that this was, in fact, a bear - a sleeping bear who would not be sleeping for long. Josiah started backing up and decided that they all ought to leave Mr. Bear alone (well, DUH!). Nash had been pumping up Josiah's pellet gun all the way over there and didn't want to waste the shot. You know, who wants to waste a perfectly good pellet gun shot?? Apparently, Nash is a good shot, and according to them, this is how it all went:
bee bee gun firing ........ ping ........... "RROOOOAAAAARRR" - bear is awake now!......4 wailing boys with swiftly running feet ....... galloping bear heading their way. Isaiah said that he kept looking back and saw the bear coming after them. They got to the gate and shut it (iron gate, about 3 feet high - not really a bear deterrent!) and ran as fast as their feet could go to the house - screaming the whole way. We were in the kitchen when they came busting through the door all talking at once about "it" chasing them. They were all freaking out (as they very well should have been). We figured that if that bear wanted to get them, it easily could have done so and, therefore, it was either scared of those 4 bellowing, hysterical, man-children or it wanted to give them a good scare. It did that for sure. We all had a good laugh about it later because as Ma Wilder always said "All's Well that Ends Well", but thankfully, they never want to see a bear again. So the moral of the story is......NEVER shoot a bear with a bee bee gun!! Is that new news to any of you? Maybe you ought to pass it along to your boys!