Jan. 13, 2002 ~ Coyote
"The dark one" came pretty close, this morning. We have names for the coyotes -- the dark one, the light one -- those two are easy to recognize. The dark one, Larry said, walked right alongside the fence, literally just inches from the house. By the time Husband loaded the gun, got dressed, and got out there, the beast was out of range. He shot anyway, hoping to scare it off.
We have that new calf, the not-smart one, and one of our barn cats, Mouse, is injured. I think a coyote might have hurt her. She ran under the barn yesterday, wouldn't let me touch her, and she's normally pettable. I could see the blood and the gash on her side.
I don't have anything good to say about coyotes. I used to think they were beautiful animals, wild things, and there was a certain romance about them. Not any more. I know everybody's gotta eat, yes, I do. But I don't forgive them for eating our animals. Try looking at in human terms. You'll have to use your imagination for this one. A family of cannibals is living in the woods in your back pasture. They are really very nice, except for that thing of eating people. One by one, they kill members of your family, usually the children or the weak ones. Would you forgive them? They've gotta eat, you know. Me, I would just look at them as murderers. That's how I feel about coyotes. For that matter, I'm not too crazy about the neighbors' dogs. We've never actually seen them kill our ducks, but we will see the dogs, and two minutes later the dogs and one of our ducks disappear. Circumstantial evidence, but...
Our farrier keeps telling me to get a little pistol and carry it in my pocket, anytime I go outside. He knows I don't want to, but he says I've got to be able to defend the animals. One of the few times I've wished I had a gun with me was when I looked up and saw a bobcat, crossing the pond dam. It was not that far away, and it was in broad daylight. The local game warden assured me that bobcats rarely show themselves in the daytime. I'll tell the bobcat, next time I see it. My son also came face-to-face with a bobcat in the back pasture -- again, in the daytime. I guess our bobcats haven't read the book on standard bobcat behavior. That, or they're just rebels.
Snakes worry me a little, sometimes. Just the poisonous ones. Trouble is, most of them around here are poisonous, either water moccasins or copperheads. There have been a few occasions when I've crossed paths with a snake and have wished I had a gun. Most of the time I just get away from them, though at times they've been too close for comfort. Try stepping out your back door and nearly setting your heel down on a copperhead. On your porch. Curled up next to the door. THAT critter didn't last long. The guys were gone, I was home alone, so I couldn't act all girly... had to just get a hoe and...
I digress. Coyotes to bobcats to snakes, and now, back to coyotes. They are evil, horrid, nasty creatures. Maybe you'd feel that way, too, if you'd seen them ripping a newborn calf to pieces. Trust me, it's not the same as in those animal documentaries on TV.
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