The Coyote

My wife first alerted me to a Coyote she spotted out on the pasture. They're very impressive looking this time of year with their this gray coats like small wolves. This particular lone coyote was quickly making his way past Regal, our huge black thoroughbred. Regal made his presence and might quite obvious to the coyote, frolicking and darting around. Smart enough to know the consequences of confronting such a horse, the coyote crossed the fence line and disappeared into the woods.

People seem to always associate spotting a coyote with shooting a coyote. Personally I gauge their threat level of a coyote to be quite a bit lower than a porcupine or even a skunk. Even my dear wife would shoot me before I ever got a round off at any animal. She has a gift for handling animals and that just goes with the territory. I could only ever shoot an animal with my camera anyway.

My biggest worry above and beyond any wildlife on the property is the traffic on the road at the edge of the property. Joey, our 6 month old lab is pretty new to the concept traffic and she's recently found out about the road and where it is.

Yesterday, I parked the car on the edge of the property as the recent snow made the driveway much too slippery to drive all the way to the house. Of course that means hiking all the way down the 200 yard stretch in the dark to get to the car again to go to work.

Last night on my hike to the car, I noticed dog tracks. At first I was infuriated to find out that damn dog was wandering down to the road by herself. I got to the car and realized the tracks were fresh and there wasn't any leading back to the house. Joey was sound asleep in bed when I left anyway. The tracks led to the car and then they disappeared into the darkness of the woods.

It occurred to me that I was probably tracking the same coyote that I had seen earlier. This time, I'm a little relieved that the animal wasn't waiting there at the car for me. I'm sure we'd have scared the crap out of each other.

Labels: day to day