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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Coyote update.

Last week I was about up to my feet up and was having a cup of tea when I spotted a coyote pup on the lawn in front of the house. He was peering towards the side of the house..the same place I last saw the chickens. I bolted to my feet. It's funny how you can move so fast when you have to. Rattle snakes can make me move at lightening speed as well...like when I was spraying weeds with a heavy backpack sprayer and a rattlesnake rattled in the long grass right by my feet. One minute I was tired and sluggish, the next I was some distance away and feeling very energetic and awake. When I was very pregnant and sitting on a plank bridge watching Brad work by the irrigation ditch, a rattlesnake rattled right under me.. all I could think of was that knot hole in the plank. The next thing I knew I was some distance from the plank and I never knew how I got there. Funny thing was I was so pregnant I was having trouble getting up and down.

I dashed outside and yelled at the pup. He went into the long grass between the garden and the cultivated soil in the field. William came and we looked for him. William was convinced he'd ran off, but I thought he was hiding in that bit of grass. I suspect he's been hiding close to us for awhile and has become accustomed to seeing us and hearing our voices.

I took Bobby and Teddy outside to keep an eye on things and we lay on the slope under the oak tree. Within minutes Bobby focused on something behind me, rose up and streaked off. I turned around and there was that little stinker on the lawn again! I was right behind Bobby, actually running a bit. Bobby quickly caught him ...and....well Bobby is a very friendly dog and the meeting was very cordial until I came on the scene yelling, 'Kill Kill Kill', because I didn't know what else to shout. The pup ran under the crab apple tree near the chicken coops. Then Brad and William showed up. William got his gun and so I got mine. Things were starting to look bad for the little pup. While we were getting ourselves well armed, Brad and Bobby found the coyote pup trying to hide in the long grass and had him surrounded. William went into the tall grass first with his gun and mumbled something about shooting him if he was to run off. I went and had a look and there was this lovely little frightened puppy trying to get as low as he could to make himself invisible. I was all, "Awwwww hello sweetie". Keep in mind this pup is the same size and age as Teddy, so at this point assassination was out of the question.

Well, we had to come with some other plan and who better to come up with a cunning plan but me. I suggested catching him. Brad got his snare and welding gloves and I prepared a dog kennel to drop him into. What we would do with him after we had him in the kennel wasn't thought about. I'm not really a detail person.

In retrospect Brad should have given the snare to William who was in front of him and he could have caught him easily, but Brad went from behind him and the pup ran into some deeper grass.
Here's Brad and William with the pup right between them.
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Crab apple trees on the right and strawberry trough forever on the left. We should have used the net from the strawberry trough to catch him.
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The pup ran into this grass and we lost him. Bobby was useless. She probably found him and just winked at him. I threw in some firecrackers (onto a big rock) but no pup ran out.
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William with his 72-year-old Soviet battle rifle.
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I got in the chickens by dropping bits of bread to get them to follow me.
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The ducks are easy to herd but this silly hen came in with them and they attacked her really bad. Ducks have a dark side.
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The pup was fine with hunting the plentiful rodents in the meadow, but Brad ploughed it up and re-seeded it. As it turns out the pup is now hunting across the road in our hay field that we call the 'flat'. The hay there has just been cut and turned and there's lots of things for him to eat.

The other day William found this bunny trapped where she shouldn't have been and he brought her to me. The bunny was really tired. I offered her lettuce, but she didn't know what it was. She did have a drink. I sprayed her with a bit of flea spray and we let her go.
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