I live with a big black bear. He’s been at my French doors a couple of times in recent years. Once when I left town without cleaning my outdoor grill, he carried it off the porch and smashed it to lick the grease. Any time from May to November a kitchen scrap finds its mistaken way into the Waste Management container he’ll find it over night, leaving a mess of ripped bags to be collected in the morning. My neighbors have seen him. He has frightened campers at the Willow-South Crestone trailhead a few minutes away.

In confrontations his reaction is to stand and stare then walk off. I’m not afraid of him — so far — but I do respect him. Incredibly strong, clever, dexterous, steel-clawed, keen-nosed. In the West the bear is the most nearly human animal. Certainly that is why he (yes, or she) was revered for hundreds of years by the Pueblo people south of here. His print is sacred. I suppose he respects us.

Otherwise he would take out a window or even rip through a wall to get at the garbage I keep in sealed containers until trash pickup morning. He knows they’re there (you can’t seal off a scent from a bear). He knows when I’m away or sleeping. That’s why I would rather put the garbage outside in a small bear-proof container.

Last time I checked, however, the only one available was produced at a prison welding shop in Florence. You needed to pre-order. The price was $250. And they don’t deliver.

The community meeting last month with representatives of the Colorado Department of Parks and Recreation got me to thinking: how do you make an affordable bear-proof trash bin? One neighbor showed me two modified 55-gallon oil drums in which she keeps compost, but the modification required bolts and nuts and a steel strap and a lot of torch cuts. And she has to open them with a wrench.

But I thought maybe she was on to something. And while picking up some dog food at Murdock’s, a farm and ranch supplier in Salida, the other day I saw a stack of 55-gallon steel drums for sale at $49.95 each. These were not oil drums with the welded tops and small screw caps, they were former containers of some sort of juice concentrate, with removable tops secured by steel rims.

I bought one, brought it home, put it next to Waste Management, dropped in the 25-pound bag of dog food, tightened the rim bolt and slept securely that night. In the morning I saw the drum still standing. A small victory in the bear war!

My affordable bear-proof container

But what if he just didn’t like dog food or passed it by because it required too much work to get at? That night I unscrewed the rim, lifted the top, dropped in a tied plastic bag of trash which included some corn cobs and a frozen lasagna box and an empty milk carton and maybe a small hunk of sour dough bread and went to sleep.

Next morning when I thought to look out, I had to blink. The steel drum had not been tipped over or rolled. It simply was not there!

Eventually I found it 100 feet down the dirt road, lying in the borrow pit. All around were huge scuff marks. The tracks led back to where the drum had been. It had not been rolled. This 55-gallon steel drum containing 25 pounds of dog food had been…. carried down the road!

But the lid had held. The rim remained unbent and bolted in place. Problem solved, except I needed a dolly to roll the thing back up the road. Next project: tie the thing down somehow. . .

UPDATE:

What I did was dig a hole about two feet deep and dropped in the drum. I tamped the dirt tight around it. I drove a 5-foot-6 steel fence post about three feet into the ground. I fastened the drum to the post with a triple strand of baling wire. Happy with my work, I unbolted the rim, dripped in some garbage, bolted it back, and rested.

The result next morning: he had uprooted the drum. But he couldn’t roll it away. And the top held. Next time, maybe, he’ll sniff on down the road thinking: no more free lunch.

Footnote: I left a screw driver on top of the drum, handy for opening it. A friend who knows about bears commented on the first picture I posted:  ”Better not leave that screw driver there.”  I think he was joking. After the bear uprooted the drum, however, I could not find the screw driver.

(For more on Crestone bears, go to Baca Blog)

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