For all you bear enthusiasts out there I have a couple questions.

Background: I've recently moved to a house on a farm in the mountains. A couple of weeks ago, late one night,I heard a noise in my back yard. I turned on the back flood lightand when I looked to see if it was deer stealing apples I didn't see any deer but saw a pear tree near my house was shaking a lot. Thinking it was a couple of racoons in the tree I got my flashlight and went outside to get a closer look. About 15 yards away I still couldn't see anything because the tree was pretty leafy. Suddenly a big (about 5 or 6 feet long and at least 200 pounds) black bear dropped to the ground and huffed at me and ran away up hill. Obviously I was startled.

A week later my wife and some guests were standing on the back porch after dark (around 9 pm). They heard some growling and came inside (quite hurriedly I might add, much to my amusement). I could hear the growling through the window and it sounded like a deep low growl short but repeated several times.

I'm not up on bear lore since the only bears we had further east were in the swamps which I didn't hunt so could some of you guys enlighten me? I understood black bears to be shy creatures and avoided human contact. My wife and guests were talking at a normal conversational level and I think the porch light was on. What was the motive for the growling? Is it like deer who snort to get something to move so that they can identify something they don't know? How likely is this bear to continue to hang around my house? I can legally take him/her during bow season Oct 1 but I'm not sure I want to. I don't have much need for one and I'm not sure I'd like the meat. But it makes my wife nervous and we have three small kids, so I have to keep them in mind if this guy is going to keep showing up around here.