Coyotes

Photo courtesy of Junglewalk.com.http://www.junglewalk.com/photos/Coyote-pictures-I12257.htm

You know, I was never really aware that we had coyotes around here until about 4 years ago. One balmy evening several summers ago, we had our bedroom window open and straight in front of our house across the street and field and another road and into the next field/woods, we heard coyotes howling.  We were shocked!  We were quite sure that's what it was even the first time hearing it because dogs just don't sound like that.  I even emailed my neighbor the next day to ask if they'd heard them as well and she told me they had. That same summer, we also saw a coyote within a 1/4 mile of our house.  It's the only time I've seen a live one; I've seen a couple dead ones.  Ever since then, with increasing frequency, we hear them howling.  The groups seem to have gotten larger over the years and are now on all sides of us rather than just to the southwest of us.  It seems to be a nightly occurrence even in the winter time with the windows closed to hear them carrying on.  It's somewhat unnerving, but I've gotten used to it for the most part.   There was even a bounty out for coyotes for a period of time, though from what I hear, they bounty has been removed (not sure why!!!)

About 2 weeks ago, we set up our pop up camper so we could make sure it had suffered no damage during the winter from mice etc. and also so we could sleep in it during the cool spring nights some.  We have thoroughly enjoyed sleeping out in the camper which you can literally step off of our front porch and into the camper without even having to get in the dirt.  The kids have slept out there without us a few times, but usually we sleep out there with them.  It's so peaceful with the cool nights and the birds chirping by 5:30 a.m.   Sure enough, every night we hear coyotes way in the distance howling at some point or other during the night.  It kind of makes a chill go down my spine to hear it when we're in the camper and the sounds are so much clearer, but it doesn't frighten the kids and we all fall right back to sleep. 

I need to go off on a bunny trail here.  Remember this fellar?  That's Chuck.  Chuck, the six month old (today) orphan steer who thinks that surely the grass is greener on the other side and is perfectly willing to go through four strands of electric wire to find out.  Chuck, who has to be put on a thirty foot tie out cable when I'm not home to supervise him and who has to be put on that same tie out at night so he doesn't go through the fence and wreck havoc.  I kept him in the barn stall at night until he was over 300 lbs, but he'd just gotten so big and keeping the stall clean had become a major ordeal, so I started staking him out near the house at night on a fence post and letting him be in the pasture during the day.  Last night though, I didn't tie him out.  It was terribly stormy and rainy, and even though he was in a new portion of the pasture last night for the first time, I decided to just let him stay out in hopes that he didn't get loose and run for the hills (woods) the one night he was free.  

Last night, as I said, it was storming and raining fairly hard and we wanted to hear the rain, so all six of us slept in the camper (prior to that, we've always let Elizabeth stay in her own bed with a monitor out the window so we could hear her if she awoke, but with the rain, we decided to just let her sleep with us.)  It went very well for it to be Elizabeth's first night in the camper.  She went to sleep fairly quickly with no fuss; but I didn't sleep quite as well as I normally do.  I tossed and turned a bit due to the grit in the bed, the dampness in the air, and because I was hot.  Finally though, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

All of a sudden, at 2 A.M., with a heart stopping, breath taking, pee in your pants kind or terror, I jolted awake to the clearest, loudest, CLOSEST sound of not one but TWO coyotes howling and yapping RIGHT. OUT.SIDE. the camper.   I don't think it would have scared me more had I been robbed at gun point!!!  I am telling you, it is the EERIEST sound ever.  At least they only carried on for about 30 seconds and at least there were just two of them.  Sometimes there seem to be six or eight of them and they go on for minutes at a time.  The sound awoke Savannah and Aaron as well. I don't know HOW it didn't wake the other three kids, but I heard Savannah whisper "That's creepy."  All I could think of was that they'd found Chuck who was right where the sound was coming from.  I thought, OF COURSE! The ONE night I didn't tie him up!!  He got loose and is running through the woods and they're going to get him because he'll tangle himself in some brush in the woods! Why oh WHY didn't I brave the lightning to tie him out near the house?  Or would that have been worse?!?!?!  Then he would have been like a worm on a hook just waiting to get eaten!  I thought surely he'd start hollering if they tried to get him, but I probably would have been too freaked to do anything but huddle under the covers cling to Aaron.  I had also decided that IF he wasn't in the fence in the morning, I might just have to ask Aaron to go look for him, because I didn't want to be the one to find him mangled and dead in the woods due to my negligence.  I know that coyotes don't usually go after an animal his size, but he is a lone animal which makes him more vulnerable, plus these coyotes are in large packs, and the larger the pack is, they often go after larger prey like cattle and elk.  It took over an hour for my adrenaline rush to subside enough for me to be able go back to sleep, but even still I dreamed wild and crazy dreams of Chuck being eaten by coyotes.  Y'all.  That sound was so close that if we'd been in the house with the windows shut it would have woken me up!  Holy moly, I don't ever wanna hear that again.

The next morning, I got up a few minutes after Aaron did, and when I walked into the house, Aaron was pouring the coffee and told me that he had already seen Chuck in the pasture, grazing happily, so I was VERY relieved to know that, for the moment, we still have T-bone steaks  in our future.  While Aaron was drinking his cup of coffee, he walked out to look for evidence of the coyotes, and it was very apparent by Dixie's reactions where'd they been and it was about 80 feet from the camper, in the mowed section of the grass.  He also saw fresh tracks in the mud.  Wow.

(Oh, and as a side note, when I said that Chuck was six months old today, that was on the day that I started this post....which was on May 30.  So, he's really technically, six months and a week now. teehee)