Wild Kingdom Friday

[stetto]

Friday was "interesting". It started with a good hard frost that felt like would stay all day. I took the snowblower in for service (as opposed to a cup of gasoline and a match) and picked up my deer tag and $30 worth of hand & foot warmers.

I got home and let one of the dogs out, then commenced to cooking up one of my favorites, ham and bean soup. I am GOOD at soups, stews and chilis...

I looked out the kitchen window and saw our rez dog standing at alert facing the heavily wooded grove. It looked like a young deer was hiding in the tall quackgrass. I grabbed the camera to take some video (which will be up on yootoob before long), and after the critter moved around a bit I realized it was a coyote. The dog looked like she was going to give chase, and the coyote looked all too eager to let her. We all know what that means. There were more coyotes in the corn. This one was luring my dog out.

Only she wasn't buying. It was hilarious watching that poor coyote dance and prance, trying to get Sadie to give chase. Wile E. ultimately gave up. If I'd have let Charlie out I have no doubt we'd have lost both dogs. I spent an hour looking for my varmint loads for the .243, I won't be filming the next coyote in the yard...

Right after finding the varmint shells I look out the kitchen window again and there's a bald eagle standing in the yard with a fox squirrel in its beak. It took off before I got the camera turned on...

Terrin got home about 5, and as dusk fell a couple of whitetails wandered across the back yard. I should have gotten the hint; our brush with the wild things wasn't near over.

At 9:30 our least-likely mouser, Frank the Maine Coon, turned up a very large mouse and laid it in my sons lap.

Shortly after 10 I let the dogs out for a whizz before bed. 15 seconds later they came screaming back to the door, and I foolishly opened it. Charlie had found a skunk, and apparently found the wrong end of it at point blank range. He commenced to race around the house trying to escape the eye-burning, lung-stopping stench he was wearing right up the right side of his snout. He made his way to the kids room in the basement, came back up, spinning and running and spreading the evil, and finally I got him out to the garage, where Terrin applied two heavy treatments of secret skunk neutralizer. We opened doors and windows (it was 39 degrees), lit 25 or more candles, and retreated to the master bedroom where Charlie hadn't gotten in. We were uninhabitable.

The smell is better now, but not gone. Funny how skunk don't smell like skunk when it's up close on your dogs snout.

There is a live trap set out there now. Had our Marlin Perkins Friday. No more, please and thank you....

[Onepoint]

Heheh, should have got video of that.   

[stetto]

Here's the coyote footage...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1odQAT3Zlo&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqwY6yfdXVU&feature=youtu.be

[Onepoint]

Man, I can never get them to hold still like that, its always a running shot.

[stetto]

Yeah, and if I'd had the .243 up and out like I meant to by then his pelt would be hanging right now. There's no bounty on coyotes here, but since the brain surgeons at the state DNR introduced wild turkey to the area some 30 years ago the predator population has risen accordingly. Some local farmers will pay a "reward" for confirmed kills.

[stetto]

Dang back yard is turning into a wildlife park...




And they frolic. Again, me without a fox harvesting tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4_5j67aVsc&t=2s

[stetto]

Got up this morning to extra extra thick fog and these right outside the door...






It would appear that our foxy friends are curious about us too. They were out in the grove playing again, dogs barking like maniacs didn't seem to phase them at all.