Pine Mountain resident Jim Hackett sent this to The Mountain Enterprise a short time after the bear visited his house on August 4, 2014:

Those who’ve been by our mountain retreat in Pine Mountain Club know I’m enclosing our new spa. While working on the door entry framing and the pellet stove flue today, one of my tasks was applying Penofin stain to some cedar trim. About 3 PM I was in my workshop and heard a weird sound on the spa deck. Rounding the corner to investigate, who pops up but one of our local forest denizens.

He seemed to like the blues I was playing and, apparently, the odiferous stain. Penofin is nasty and is based on a foul-smelling Brazilian jungle oil. Stinks to high heaven and is, without a doubt, a very toxic brew. It’s so bad, you can’t leave any rags soaked with it piled up – they will spontaneously combust. I lay mine out in the sun to dry by themselves away from any combustible material – then soak them in water prior to disposing.
A house burned down up here recently from improperly stored Penofin rags, so you just can’t be too careful with this stuff.

Anyway, despite my calm encouragement to get in the wind, Smokey decides to chow down on the Penofin soaked cloth. Eventually, he ambled back into the woods with the rag clenched in his jaws. I just hope he has the number for the Poison Control Center in Atlanta. Unbelievable…

This is part of the August 8, 2014 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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