A Coyote in the Garage

Early yesterday morning just at dawn Hiromi and I were a bit startled when Grant came charging out of his bedroom with a gun (and not much else). He headed straight for the front door and opened it, peering at the front lawn. When he made moves to step outside, Hiromi said, "Take a coat."

I said, "Step into my Crocs."

"It's not there anymore," he said. "Steven just called me and said there was a coyote standing in the front yard when he went past just now."

Marcus passed on his way to work before Grant retreated behind the closed door. I hope he wasn't traumatized by the sight at the front door.

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This morning Grant asked "Did you move out all the deer parts I had left in the garage?" He had worked up the doe there from his successful hunt earlier this week.

"No," Hiromi answered.

"Shane said he didn't either. I wonder if Caleb tossed them in to his pigs," he continued. "I was going to take care of them, but they're gone."

"Maybe that coyote dragged them out," I said.

"I haven't seen anything left lying around outside though," Grant said.

"I guess that would have had to be a pretty nervy coyote anyway--to come right into the garage."

After breakfast this morning Grant came in from the garage and said, "There must have been a coyote in the garage. There are lots of big "dog" footprints in there." (The garage has a dirt floor.) We don't have a dog.

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This morning Hiromi observed that he sees only two guineas together instead of the usual three. I hope this is evidence of a fractured relationship in the normal flocking behavior--not evidence of a successful coyote hunt.

"Yesterday when Steven saw the coyote, I hoped the guineas were still on the roost," I told him.

I hope that the sheep are safe. Their pen is right across the driveway from the front yard.

It's hard to feel totally dispassionate about predator-prey dynamics in the natural world when we have so much more invested in the prey than we do in the predator.

When coyotes come into the garage for deer scraps or when they carry off a guinea, they're just doing what coyotes are designed to do. Even so, I'll find it hard to be philosophical if Mara has a nice lamb again early this spring and it becomes coyote food. I'm pretty sure that if that happened, one less coyote would seem greatly to be preferred over having one less lamb.

I love hearing coyotes yipping or howling at night in the fields around our farm--as long as they're far enough away, and our farm animals are safely sheltered.