Tag: coyote

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Bluebeard’s Third Wife first appeared in Ghost Parachute, always a favorite journal for flash fiction. A huge bonus to Ghost Parachute is the artwork that accompanies each story. I love the creepy illustration from Kay Stedman of the bride!

Most of this video is about a year old. Oops. The reading is from Cliffview Park in Alto Pass. I climbed stone stairs from the bottom of the bluff almost to the top—would have been easier to start at the top, I guess. When people visit me from out of the area, Cliffview is one of my favorite places to bring them. It’s easily accessible. You park, get out, walk 10 feet, you are at the top of a bluff. The trail below the bluff is cool too. It’s an area that attracts rock climbers. They use ropes and hand holds, not stairs like I did.

Other footage is from Mt. Lemon, near Tucson, Arizona. The wolf at the beginning is a Mexican gray wolf at the Sonoran Desert Museum near Tucson. Tim and I were visiting son Will and his girlfriend Jensen. I hiked at Mt. Lemon with them, but Tim had messed up his knee and couldn’t hike.
The wildlife footage is from Coyote Creek. A HUNTING BOBCAT! How’s that for an amazing capture on trail cam?? And a young coyote.

I hope you enjoy!

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About three times a day, the dogs go bonkers and, as soon as they are let outside, they rush down to the creek. Sometimes they go charging down into it and come back wet and muddy. Sometimes they run up the side of it into the field. Sometimes they bark, sometimes they just race. Usually it’s because of a squirrel. But occasionally, it’s one of these guys. I’ve busted coyotes out in our yard several times. I yell at them to go away, and if the chickens are out, they just barely comply. I love them anyway.

The bobcat we don’t see so much. A neighbor says the bobcat had kits last summer for sure. So maybe we have more than one in the area. Again, I love them, even if they, too, take a chicken now and then.

Coyotes and Bobcat

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Every place I’ve lived in Southern Illinois I’ve always been within earshot of a distant train—or better yet, coyotes.
Tim (my husband, singer-songwriter Tim Crosby) got me a couple trail cams for my birthday. Best. Present. Ever.

Nocturnal Trail Cam in May

Maybe I shouldn’t be so excited about chicken-eating predators so near our free-range chickens. But I am. A bobcat!!
When I lived at Broken Branch with Merlin and Crocodile and Odin (horse, horse, dog, respectively) and my son was little, the barn door had blown down—and that was most of the wall. Before my then-landlord set it back on track, a bobcat moved into the barn. I never saw her, but neighbors did. I heard her one night—an unearthly screech! The neighbor suggested I call the IDNR, maybe have her removed. “No way,” I said. “I have no ‘possums, no raccoons, nothing in the barn.” She wouldn’t hurt the horses. So we had a nice relationship for a while.
Underhill, though, our home now is a berm home across from the Shawnee National Forest. A creek circles most of the back pasture where eventually we’ll have horses again. We’ve got lots of neighbors we never see. Enjoy!