How to (B)ruin a perfectly good day...

I was having such a great day ... sun shining...just returned from a great walk with my nature group ... saw two new life-birds plus several first-of-season favorites ...home to have a quick bite of lunch on the deck ...and then my good day came to a screeching halt!  I walked out to the end of the deck, looked down and saw THIS looking back at me.  I happened to have my camera so, as any good Blipper would do, I snapped off a few quick shots.  Then, I grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be a golf ball (hubs had cleared some up from the front yard) and winged it at the bear.  I missed, but startled her enough so that she trotted back to the edge of the woods.  Where she proceeded to turn around and give me a look, captured here.  

By the way, this is taken at 440mm and is not cropped.  By this point she was making her way back towards the deck - slowly, so I felt comfortable staying out and taking shots.  I eventually yelled and winged more balls at her and she trotted back to the edge of the woods and eventually walked out of sight into the deep woods.  Crap.  That kind of put a damper on my plans to plant gladiola bulbs out back this afternoon.  

Interesting to note that she (I'm assuming a female because of the size - probably no more than 200 pounds - probably not sexually mature yet) has a big notch gone from her right near which is probably from a tag.  Makes me wonder if she is the same bear that was such a pest last fall on the deck.  Happily, she left the hummingbird feeders alone and the 3 feeders on the clothesline were well out of her reach.  The feeder on the deck is history, however.  

I posted two other pics of the bear as well as a RT hummer sitting on a nest, and a gorgeous male Indigo Bunting starting HERE on Flickr.  

I have a pest exterminator here right now to see if he can find the source of the carpenter ants that we've been finding in our basement.  Ugh.  It's sure to be expensive, but one can't have carpenter ants in a wood-framed house.  

Thanks for all the lovely comments yesterday.  Yes, my Mom is a very special person and she really has been a huge inspiration to me.  

TTFN...