Ahhh, adrenaline

For the uninitiated, let me say this: There is nothing that kicks off your sympathetic nervous system response with some high octane adrenaline like seeing three hungry adult coyotes charging down a slope toward you and your not-large dog. Boy howdy. Pro tip: Do. not. run.

If you take off running, you will not gain the experience of seeing how the lead coyote splits off from the other two so that he can head you off while the other two chase from behind. It's amazing, really. They do this without verbal commands or hand signals or walkie talkies. They simply know to hunt prey this way, and it's quite fascinating. And kind of scary.

So I stood still on the trail, Maya close beside me, but I kept my eyes moving back and forth, watching the lead guy, watching the other two. As I did this, I began talking in a voice loud enough and deep enough to make the 'yotes nervous, but I kept the lid on my urge to do some excited shouting because I didn't want to terrify my dog. She knew, though. Maya knew. She'd seen them, too, so when I started making loud growling sounds--something she's never heard me do before--she understood that I was doing this to warn off the very big creatures who had come running toward us.

Also for the uninitiated: Coyotes are damn smart.

So we watch the lead guy peal off and run parallel to us and then ahead of us, crossing the trail and abruptly stopping to hide behind a tall shrub. I know he's there because I've kept my eyes on him, and now I can see the tips of his ears above the foliage. He stands as still as I had moments ago, waiting. Watching.

What to do? We walk straight toward him.

I mean, I'm not going to turn around and go back in the direction of two coyotes, and this is the only trail out, so we're going to--I'm going to--chase him off. Which is what I do, tossing rocks into the shrub, growling, shouting (but not too loud), "Go on, 'yote!"

And he goes.

But we do not stop watching, Maya sniffing the air as we pass that shrub, all senses alert, me ready to reach down and scoop up my thirty-pound dog if I have to. But the coyote disappears into the brush.

Next item on our hiking agenda: Get the hell out of there and back to the truck. Sadly, Maya is now limping badly on her left front paw. When I find a sandy section of trail surrounded only by low foliage, I bend down to check her foot, grateful that finally, after three years, she will let me touch her feet when she picks up a thorn so I can pull it out. There is nothing in her foot pad this time, though, as I suspected. When we stopped on the trail to watch the coyotes, I realized too late we were standing near an ant's nest. I suspect she's been bitten. She licks her paw over and over, then looks up at me. I know exactly what she's thinking. It's this:

Can't you make it better? You always make it better. This hurts. Please make it better.

But I can't. Not out here. So we limp slowly down the trail, me promising to get her home as soon as possible while ever vigilant lest the coyote reappear.

We've gone fifty yards when I realize I left my hiking pole in the trail when I stopped to examine Maya's paw. We have to go back for it, back toward the coyote's hiding place. Maya limps slowly beside me, I finally pick up the pole, and we reverse direction, heading back up the trail toward the truck. It's a long slog. We were nearly to the farthest point out when we saw the coyotes. Now we've got a mile to walk back. And even though it's only 7:30a.m., it's getting hotter by the second.

We stop every time we find shade. Maya immediately crouches, turning her paw up to lick it over and over. My poor girl. We walk on.

Slowly, though, the pain in her paw starts to subside. She limps less and less, and by the time we get to the final steep uphill, she trots ahead of me. She knows the truck is on the other side. Safety assured. We've made it.

Before you ask: No, I don't carry pepper spray. The coyotes would just sneeze it off. I, however, would need to call 9-1-1 for a rescue because my lungs would immediately shut down. No, I would never carry a gun and shoot a coyote. Just no. Coyotes don't attack adult humans. It's only Maya I need to worry about. Because a coyote will hide in the bushes and leap out to steal a small dog off a leash. For this reason, I am hyper-vigilant when out in the hills with her, scanning the sides of the trail ahead for snakes or predators, scanning the ridgelines for coyotes (which is how I saw these three right at the exact moment they saw us). FYI, I often slip a pocket knife into my backpack or hiking pants if I think I may be in a dangerous situation. But we were just out for "a quick walk in the hills before it gets hot." Sigh....

Maya is fine. I am fine. The coyotes are fine but probably still very hungry. For a while. The hills are covered with rabbits and voles. They'll get breakfast, don't you worry about them. I'm just glad the menu didn't include Maya.

Wild Geese and Cairn Builders

Lordy, I love that photo. Sometimes the sky just stops me in my tracks. It's impossible to capture the full beauty of the sweeping vistas I often see when walking Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, but on this walk, when we spotted this beautiful "horsetail" cloud, I had to stop and give it a try. We had already had a few adventures on our walk (explanation to follow), and we were almost back to the truck, but Thomas was patient, as he always is, when I dropped his leash and gave him the "wait" command. Oh, how glad I am I snapped the photo. It nicely commemorates a truly wonderful walk.

One week before, I had taken my dear friend Liz on somewhat of a wild goose chase--which turned out to be quite literal, in the end--out to Banning, our neighboring town. We didn't find what we were looking for, so on the way back to her car, I turned the Subaru up a remote dirt road to show her one of my favorite places overlooking Bogart Park in Cherry Valley. As we stood on the ridge-line gazing at the sky, she said, "What's that?" We both looked to the south and saw a cluster of something in the air. As it drew nearer, we could make out that it was a small flock of wild geese. "Twenty-two," Liz counted. "But they're not flying in formation."

No, they were not. They were doing something I've never seen wild geese do before; they were riding a thermal, catching the warm air rising from the canyon wall we stood upon and letting it lift their bodies up and around in slow circles. I've seen hawks do this a thousand times. I have never had the opportunity--the downright blessing--to watch a flock of geese do the same, each moving in and out from each other like graceful dancers in a tightly choreographed routine. The sight was astounding. And I had left my phone in the car. So no photo, no video. I could have tried to run back, but Liz and I decided we would just seize the moment and watch. We stood there, nearly silent, for a quarter of an hour, feeling the sun on our faces, watching the spectacular show, each grateful to witness the once-in-a-lifetime show.

It rained in the ensuing week. On the first dry day, I took Thomas out to one of our favorite hiking spots. On that day, for some reason known only to him, he decided to leave the wide dirt road and follow a coyote trail. Since I knew exactly where we were in relationship to the road and we weren't in dense brush, I let him, just following along, letting him meander as he stopped from time to time to sniff. As we came over a hill into an open space, this is what we saw:

Can you see the small white mound on the left side of the picture? I had to wonder what it was; we were far from the road and following a pretty faint trail. Turns out, it was a cairn.

Well, now. Someone else had come this way (unless the coyotes are now using cairns to message each other in some way--I don't know; they're pretty smart).

As we strolled, we saw another cairn--

and another.

I smiled to think that someone else had wandered off the beaten path ("Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" is what you're thinking, no?), probably with a dog or two, and had stopped, potentially to let the dogs run free for a moment, and had used the time to make his or her mark, to place a few stones atop one another to indicate "I was here."

While I try always to "leave no trace," I didn't mind this sort of thing. In some way, it warmed and comforted me to know another human had roamed these same quiet hills, no doubt in contemplation, as I was, of all the beauty.

We walked on. I led Thomas to a fire road that I knew would take us back to the main road to follow back to the truck. We strolled along, Thom trotting along quickly now in anticipation of home and treats. Dense chaparral lined the road on either side of us. Around a bend we went, and exactly where the two roads intersected stood a lovely lady coyote.

She looked healthy, with a gorgeous coat and round belly. And she stood in our path huffing quietly--not quite a bark; more of a "hubba hubba." It is, after all, coyote mating season, and, well, Thomas is one good-looking guy. Interestingly, he didn't seem fearful of her at all, just a bit wary.

We stood. What to do? She was blocking the road. So I took out my phone. Which is when she stepped off the trail. I didn't want to frighten her (or myself) by making any quick movements, so we inched along until we could see her again, standing in the wild grass, watching. One picture. Two. Three. And then she was gone.

I wished her luck in finding a mate with good genes (and a good sense of humor, number one on my own list of 'good traits in a man'). And then we headed toward the truck, stopping one last time to take the photo of the horsetail cloud.