You know You Live in the Country When...

You know you live in the country when...

  ~ You look out into the dark, cloudless night time sky and see hundreds of stars.

  ~  The traffic noises you hear are the chattering squirrels and the "maaa" of the goats.

  ~  The tractor has covered parking while the family vehicles do not.

  ~ And when you can shoot a black bear in your own yard!

Yep,  Eric did it again!  We were awakened in the wee hours on Sunday morning to the sound of banging - kind of sounded like pounding on the door.  Then we heard some rattling of bottles and cans.  Hmmm, something was in the garbage.  A raccoon?  No way, the banging was too forceful.  Must be a bear. Pretty awesome since bear season had two days left.  Eric was excited and his adrenaline was running. He was going to get himself a bear. 
We keep our garbage cans along the side of the garage just outside the side door.  I asked Eric how he was going to get outside and not scare him off.  
"Through the side door."  he said matter-of-factly.
"WHAT??  The bear is right there!" I exclaimed. 
I stayed in our room, praying for safety, and watching out the window to see if it would lumber off.  I heard a loud rifle shot followed by the bear's yell/groan/growl.  I heard another shot and yelled out the window to Eric, "Did you get him? Are you ok?"
 "YEP!  Got him!"
The bear had opened the lid of one of our large garbage cans and had pulled out a bag and was ripping it open and piliging through it. When Eric opened the side door, the bear stood up.  He was able to get a clean shot right in the heart.  The power of the shot knocked the bear back several feet.  He got up and started to run down the driveway.  (Amazing power in those animals - running off with a bullet in his heart!) The second shot went into his shoulder.  It stopped him.  Just a couple of minutes later and he was dead.  Eric guessed his weight was about 200 lbs.  The hanging weight at the butcher was 98 lbs. so that's about right.  It's being made into breakfast sausage (without all the additives, of course) 
Because it was Sunday morning and he wanted to make it to church, he got right to skinning, gutting, and hanging the meat.  He said it was the easiest skinning/gutting job he has ever done.  He thought it was due to all the fat on him; I think God just wanted him to make it to church on time!  We didn't think to take a picture until after we got home from church. The photo below is not a pretty one, but we just had to show you. 
Yep - we certainly live in the country!

Excuse the gore... icky!