We don't want to anger our neighbors!

ldg

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Fighting for ferals in NW NJ!
I just discovered these pics which Gary took on his camera this summer.


We have a family of bears living up the hill right behind the house. There's a mom and 2 cubs. The mom goes about 650 pounds. The record-size bear (brown) was shot earlier two towns away from us (850 pounds).

They're not aggressive, so we just leave them be. We just put our our garbage in the morning on garbage day (that's how we discovered we have the bears!)

They've stopped the bear hunt in NJ - which I have very mixed feelings about. As a teen, I would have been unquestionable opposed to it. But being older and more conservative, I guess I think it's almost cruel not to cull the population. There are more brown bears in Northern NJ now than there were when the area was first populated in the 1600s. But their territory is so shrinking - while their food supply is increasing (garbage). The poor things do get shot when they barrel their way into someone's home, which happens not so infrequently around here in the spring and summer.


This is just one of the baby bears. When this pic was taken, he would have come up to about my chest level (pic doesn't have good size perspective):


We had to stop putting the bird food out the back. We now put it out on feeders hung at the second floor level, so the kitties still have their "TV."


But we also have a lot of deer and turkey that roam through the property very regularly.

They ALL love our property because we have LOADS of raspberry, black raspberry, and blackberry bushes. We also have peach trees and fields of strawberries (all just growing in the wild!) This was also this summer:





Laurie
 
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ldg

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I gotta say - it is pretty cool! We felt really lucky to find this place. We're 1 1/2 to 2 hours from NYC (unless we go during traffic - then it's 3+ hours) - but it sure doesn't feel like it.
In the spring/summer/fall, the deer and turkey are always around. That doe and her fawn were here all the time - usually with mom lounging in the front yard and the fawn nibbling on berries.


We live on a dead-end road, in what is mostly farming country. We live on nine acres - mostly hilly, dense woodland. Around here it's that "european" style - with lots of small farms and lots of woodland inbetween. And, obviously, lots of wildlife enjoying it!

Unfortunately, it doesn't make for good bird-watching, which I really enjoy. We put the feeders out - but there's just so much natural food and dense enough woods that they don't really need to fly into binocular range. (Though a pileated wood pecker just turned up that is entertaining all of us - especially the kitties!
).

Laurie
 

anakat

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What a wonderful place to live. The nearest we get to nature is urban foxes.
 

lisasha3

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I am really surprised that the deer and turkeys are still coming. I'm sorry to say they might not stick around with the bears. My parents had herds of deer in their field and flocks of turkeys for a good 10 years, then out of no where they started having bear sitings in the yard and around the neighborhood. Since then they haven't seen a single turkey or deer.
We miss them. I do hope yours stick around. (Watch your bird feeders - they'll take those with them)
Also, now to add to my parents prediciment - they now have packs of wolves too so we know for darn sure those deer and turkeys are probably never coming back.
 
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ldg

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Originally Posted by lisasha3

I am really surprised that the deer and turkeys are still coming. I'm sorry to say they might not stick around with the bears. My parents had herds of deer in their field and flocks of turkeys for a good 10 years, then out of no where they started having bear sitings in the yard and around the neighborhood. Since then they haven't seen a single turkey or deer.
We miss them. I do hope yours stick around. (Watch your bird feeders - they'll take those with them)
Also, now to add to my parents prediciment - they now have packs of wolves too so we know for darn sure those deer and turkeys are probably never coming back.
I'm so sorry!

And yeah - the bears do take the bird feeders. That's why we don't put them out on the ground floor anymore. (They broke one of the wrought iron hanging thingies we had out in half!). All the bird feeders are up around the second floor windows now.

Amazingly, the deer and the turkeys still come through - at least so far. We discovered the bear existed here in the summer - and the turkeys and deer were still rolling through in the fall. We still see the deer quite a bit, but haven't seen the turkey since it began snowing earlier in Jan.

Here's a pic of the house - the pictures were taken out the back window. I think it's really cute. It's almost like a log cabin! There's a flat space of about 10 - 15 feet behind the house, then the hill climbs steeply, and in the spring/summer, it's really dense with foliage.



We lived in an RV for basically 10 years before we moved into the house. We built an RV pad next to the house to keep her:



Laurie
 
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ldg

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Like I said - we felt so lucky to find it. Unfortunately we don't own it.


We rent - and though we're not sure - it looks like we may have to move.


The owner is a developer, and he informed us two or so weeks ago that he's thinking of selling it because there's a large piece of property he wants to buy to develop. He wants $525,000 for this place - which is totally outrageous for the property and the area. And there is no way we can afford it. BUT we ended up renting it because he had it on the market for 2 years, and couldn't sell it - and that was back when the housing market was much stronger. So while he may want to sell it - we're not sure he's going to be able to. On the other hand, we don't want perspective buyers traipsing through here all the time. So we'll have to see what he works out with the banks. No final word yet.

I guess the good news is that there are LOADS of homes for rent around here. We LOVE being on the dead end road. We have total privacy here. We woud lose that. But there are lots of places that are in the middle of nature, and we do love that.


Laurie
 

epona

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Amazing! While I saw plenty of deer in our garden when we were growing up, bears are a different matter entirely, I have never seen one IRL outside of the zoo! Fantastic pictures
 

katiemae1277

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Wow, I never knew Jersey still had places like that, I picture it all being like in the Sopranos
that is a great place though, too bad if you'd have to move
 

hopehacker

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Here in Los Angeles that home and all of the land with it, would go well over a million, probably closer to 2 Million.
 

pushylady

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Wow, that's my dream house right there! How lovely to live so close to all that nature (I'd be really scared of the bears though!) I hope you can find somewhere just as nice. Sounds like your landlord is being a little unrealistic.
 

MoochNNoodles

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Oh beautiful (both the animals and the house!)! My step-father loves bears! I mean real bears, teddy bears, etc. (He used to steal our teddy bears when we were younger if he thought we didn't want them anymore!) My husband would love the house too. It describes just like what he wants, plus has that nice cabinish look too!
 
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ldg

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Fortunately, brown bears are not aggressive (unless cornered). USUALLY, if they see you, they bolt. I just made sure to berry pick in the middle of the day. And when we hang outside at night we keep a bottle of bear spray (a large bottle of pepper spray) handy, just in case. But since taking away the bird food, it hasn't been a problem.

This is pretty much our dream house, too. The neighbors down the road have a five bedroom home on six acres. It's a huge place. It does have a small horse stable, which this does not. But a lot of their land is usable for farming or pasture, where the land here isn't. They were asking over $1m for it - and the entire upstairs is separate and fully equipped with kitchen & everything and they used to rent it out, so it produced an income. It's been on the market since July. They haven't had one serious offer on it. It's been "price reduced" a number of times (they've already had to move because of the hubby's job) - and it's down to $615,000.

This place is teeney. The living room is 15' wide by 20' long. Above it is an open "den," the full bath, and Naomi's room (which she'll probably never use again
) - which is only 8' wide by like 11' long or something. The kitchen is next to the living room, and our bedroom is over the kitchen. Our bedroom is 7' wide in two places (because of the closets), and 9' wide where the bed is. It's 17' long (the windows that bow out are where the kitchen and "master" bedroom are). I think I mixed up the "wide" and "long" parts - but my point is the house is small and not really 2 bedrooms although he advertises it that way.

... And we decorated the place like a cabin.
Our curtains downstairs are camoflage, and we have matching pillows on the couch.
The rocking chairs are covered in the same camo material, and the floors are wood with braided throws.






I hope we don't have to move either!!!!!!!


Laurie
 
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