You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

This on goes in the category of "Are you kidding me?!!!"  Sometime in the night...we were attacked by a bear!  I'm only half-joking.

So today as I started to head over to the farm and get more work done, I noticed that our cooler was turned over.  We only keep drinks in it, but we leave it in the yard overnight as it leaks and we don't want it leaking in the car.  The lid was off and a couple of water bottles were strewn about, along with an empty Gatorade bottle that was in the back yard.  I figured that a raccoon had gotten into it.  No worries.

I walked over to the car and noticed that my driver's side rear tire was looking flat.  Hmmm...  It looked to have shredded slightly in one spot.

Not your normal blowout

Then I noticed the driver's side front tire was flat too, with similar shred marks on it.  I walked around and noticed the passenger's side rear tire was also flat.  Again...same kind of punctures.

So now the detective work began to try to figure out what large enough animal could have done this damage and left these marks (paw prints and smears).

The top view of one of the tires

By the way, Emily mentioned that something had left a dirt smear down the side of her car and pushed her mirror all the way back when she left (early) for work this morning.

Kinda hard to see with the glare and reflections.

I ruled out raccoon and your average dog pretty quickly.  My mind quickly went to a bear, but figured that might seem like I was being too sensational so I thought of other large predators that are sometimes spotted in the area.

Coyote? - Probably too small
Wolf? - Maybe in the area, but doubtful
Bobcat? - Not quite big enough
Panther? - Possible, but unlikely

So I kept going back to thinking it was a bear.  It seemed like the logical choice, but I needed more evidence.  I called Terrell and asked him what he thought it might be.  He wasn't sure it could be a bear, but perhaps a large dog.  I figured it was possible, but still didn't want to give up on the bear theory.

Neta (I'm sure) was furiously Googling terms related to animals biting car tires and she said it could be a dog as well, but also thought bear.

By this time I'd called AAA to have them tow the car to a local tire shop that had quoted me a price for a new set of tires (the price was scarier than a bear attack!).  When the two truck driver arrived I asked him to look around first and see if he could figure out what had "attacked" my car.  We noticed some paw prints that I hadn't seen before due to the glare and reflections.

It's a bit smaller than my hand.

Then he pointed out this:

Above the paw prints about a foot...

Twin nose prints with drip marks...  And there were several others as well.

It sometimes pays to have a dirty car.
Don't judge.  My farm is off of two dirt roads.

And that is how we arrived at the conclusion of it being a bear.

Seriously!!!  Who has a bear puncture 3 of their tires?  If you're thinking this is some sort of Halloween/April Fool's joke, you are wrong.  Can life get any stranger?