Is a deer, its a fox, no its a BIG BLACK BEAR!!!

Well last night Bill and I were sitting in the living room thinking about getting up to go to bed. I heard a noise and I kinda scared me and I said "Bill ... what was that?" He didn't hear is so he said it was probably just the cat. So a few seconds later we both here it again. We both jump up looking out all the windows to make sure that was the cat. We couldn't see anything because it was so dark out. Bill said I think an animal is trying to get in our trash. We have seen deer, raccoon, skunk, groundhogs, and turkey in our yard so I knew that was a possibility. Bill said I think it's a deer. So I looked out the kitchen window and locked eyes with an animal no more than 6 feet away from me. Suddenly that window did not feel so safe. I thought it was a fox. It moved away from the window so we ran to the side of the house and looked out that window and turned on a light. We froze. Then we both said it's a bear... a BIG black bear! I was shaking. We had seen a paw print before, but I have never seen a real wild bear. The bear was right up by our house. He knocked our fryer and table over and he was trying to get in the trash can. That is what all the noise was.

Bear Fur

Oily Paw Print

The Table and Fryer

Scratches on our new trash can