Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Where the Wild Things Are

What was it I said in a previous post? The fun (or was it weirdness?) never ends for an artist living on a farm? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was something like that...

What also never ends when living on a farm with woodlands is the endless sightings of wildlife and close encounters of the heart-pounding kind. However, this time there were no mylar balloons involved, I’m happy to say.

"The Last Bale" ACEO
Copyright Rita Woodburne


Let me preface this post by saying that I love wildlife and getting up close to an animal, particularly one that you wouldn’t normally be able to, is exciting and educational as long as you exercise caution and don’t do something stupid like try to pick its nose. That said, when the animal itself takes the liberty of coming closer to you with very little hesitation it can be a bit nerve wracking to say the least and that educational experience can quickly turn into an event that results in one having to change one’s pants... if you get my meaning. So here’s where my tale begins...


On Monday morning Rosebud and I were out walking in the woods as we normally do. We made our way back into the hardwoods and as we were rounding the corner to head back I heard some rustling over the fenceline. I looked over and through the trees I saw a tawny coloured animal and I remember thinking to myself: “Oh look! A baby deer! Awww, isn’t that adora... wait. That’s not a deer...”
It looked at me and I realized I was looking at a coyote, a rather large coyote, with a rabbit hanging out of it’s mouth. Yum.

"Arctic Gaze"
8x10, coloured pencil on Mi- Teintes
Copyright Rita Woodburne


It was at this point that Rosebud also saw the coyote and decided that it might be a good idea to chase it at which point I yelled at her resulting in her stopping, the coyote running and then her wanting to go after it again.

Apparently this coyote was hell bent on getting to the other side of the property because it back-tracked, hopped over the fence line towards us, went back over again when Rosebud went after it again (which is odd because she’s about half the size of the coyote) and then finally just when we thought it had high-tailed it out of there it crossed about 6 feet in front of us. And again... Rosebud went after it. I, in turn, went after Rosebud yelling her name and to “... get your fuzzy little hiney back here! That doggie isn’t for playing with!!”



After our exciting excursion through the woods the rest of the day was, at best, uneventful if not simply downright dull. Since then we haven't seen anymore coyotes although we have heard them and just earlier this morning the radio reported that a black bear had been spotted a few towns over from us.

Yup, the fun and excitement never ends...

3 comments:

Jennifer Rose said...

kinda scary o.0 I saw a lot of coyotes living in Alberta, some where crossed with the local dogs so were not small. You could always hear them at night and while it was really cool to see and hear them, it was dangerous having them have pretty much no fear of humans :/ We had to try and make sure the dogs were inside at night so they didn't chase the coyotes and get hurt. Some people went out of their way to try to run the coyotes over :/

Rita said...

That's too bad that folks there felt so hostile towards the coyotes but it can be very disturbing to know that they don't have any fear of people, especially for folks that have small children.

I like listening to them howl at night too, I've always wondered what they were talking about to eachother...

Jennifer Rose said...

it was mostly farmers and bored teenagers. They did worse to gophers :( Gopher hunting was a national sport there :/ poor little gophers. it pissed me off as a lot of people did not see any harm tying up gophers and taking turns shooting them *sob* so the coyotes got off lucky :/

howling to tease the neighbourhood dogs :p