Sheila's Posts

Now that I think about it, something that happened recently creeps me out. When my husband first told me yesterday morning what he saw near our house lying on the ground, I was sick to my stomach hearing about it. That’s why I titled this post as I did. If you get upset easily, quit reading this post here. If you read further out of curiosity and then get nauseated, be glad I have my limits as to what I would take a picture of.

Since my husband is the one who goes down to the garden, he is the one who saw something strange behind our smokehouse. It was a dead fawn on the ground. It’s back end was partially eaten. The odd thing is that its body had been lying there for two or three days. Either a bear or a coywolf killed it. What’s very creepy is that whatever captured it left it there. It’s not normal for a wild animal to not completely eat its prey (at least around here it’s not).

I heard this poor fawn cry for its life as it was being killed during the night it happened, but I didn’t expect to see any remains. The scream woke me up. I was too tired to know for sure what it was. It’s not unusual to hear an animal being killed periodically during some nights. What’s really awful is to hear it scream for a while, then stop, only to start again. One night I heard this horrible sound repeatedly for about two hours. I think it was a rabbit getting attacked. It’s just not what you’d expect after watching so many wildlife shows on television. Maybe for television they keep slow killings off the air?

I almost mentioned in my Middle of the Night Snack? post another awful story. I’m going to bring it up now because it too is creepy. I had a cat I raised from the time it was five days old. When she was three years old, I knew something was very wrong when she disappeared one night. The next morning I saw her, as I looked out my window, coming to my front door. I will never forget the look in her eyes. (I’m feeling very sick as I share this.) Something had eaten parts of her back end. She barely made it to the house. There was no way to save her life. She had already suffered too much for too long. All I could do was cry to my husband and plead to him to please stop her from suffering any longer.

The real world is cruel and harsh. How does a person get used to sleeping through such things, especially when being a light sleeper? I have to leave my windows open quite often. I can’t seem to turn off the pain I feel whenever an animal suffers. I could never be a veterinarian. I don’t have the stomach for hearing cries of pain.

Still in all, I’d rather live in the country than a city. People who scare me are those who think legal American citizens no longer have the right to bear arms.

The coat of hair on a coyote is dark in the summer and light during the winter. I came across clumps of a coyote’s fur under a pine tree on the 5th of June in 2008 not far from my yard. It’s exactly the same color of the one I saw at 4:15 pm two days later at the end of my driveway. Today I finally took a photo to show and tell about it.

The odd thing about the coyote I saw on that day was its behavior. As I was approaching the top of my hill to turn right into my driveway, there was a brown coyote trotting in the middle of my side of the road. He (or she?) was not concerned in the least about having the front grill of a F-350 one-ton diesel pick-up truck less than only three feet behind his tail. I had to slow down for him or else I would have hit him.

Two days later after I saw the brown coyote, my neighbor told me he observed a grey one trotting away from my house out onto the road where the brown one traveled. That was also at the same time of the day.

The smell and texture of the coyote fur I saved fascinates me. I didn’t expect it to be as soft as it is. What’s even more interesting is its scent. My first impression was how much it reminded me of the sweet and pleasant odor horses have. My dog and cats were impressed too. It still stimulates their curiosity.

Some say that coyote fur smells like cinnamon. Others have said it has no odor, even when wet. One thing all agree on is that it doesn’t have the same smell that dogs naturally emit.

Close-up images of coyote fur seem scarce to find online. I did find one good photo revealing a sample of hair a coyote left behind on a fence. Eastern coyotes are becoming coywolves. Some in my area are reported to weigh as much as 90 pounds. I know the one I saw was at least as large as a male German Shepherd.

The coyote photo in my Middle of the Night Snack? post shows the smaller type (without wolf DNA) found in the Western portion of the US. That’s also the post where I briefly mention walking my German Shepherd and seeing at least a dozen pairs of coyote eyes scattered around a field I was approaching — all standing and staring — while Shadow and I did an about face and ran back home as fast as our legs could carry us.

It figures… just when I’m finally making some progress to regaining sleep after enduring eleven days and nights of insomnia, my adrenaline comes back to reverse the progress! The combination of post-menopause and Aspie hypersensitivity doesn’t mix well with a little bit of excitement right after drifting off to sleep. Thank God it’s not too often my little Rascal has to go outside to relieve herself after bedtime! She will not go out of the house after dark unless I’m with her, but the problem is she will sometimes wander around to the dark side of the house without me.

She went around the corner for only a second. Then I heard her give a frightened growl. Instantly I called her back and we both went running into the house (her with her tail between her legs and me ready to pee). If it was an opossum, deer, or neighbor’s cat, she wouldn’t have ran like she did. I know all too well how fast wildlife can snatch dearly beloved pets, so needless to say my legs were shaky over the possibility that my sweet little dog could be gone forever right now. Thank God she isn’t. She sleeps on my couch nearby:

Tired Little Rascal

One snow-covered winter night (around midnight) when walking my German Shepherd during a full moon, I noticed at least a dozen pairs of (coyote) eyes scattered around a field I was approaching. They all stood and stared. Both my dog and I promptly reversed direction and ran as fast as we could. That ended my fun walking down that road so late at night. (None of the roads nearby have street lights and whatever houses are around have their lights off by 11 p.m.).

Would you prefer to deal with coyotes in the daylight or in the dark?

Nasty Coyote

Another night around midnight, when I was taking my German Shepherd for a walk in the rain, I heard a black bear grunting off to my side less than fifteen feet away. My flashlight was useless for visibility in the fog. Immediately I had my dog start barking on command, since I’ve heard bears don’t like large dogs. I don’t know what reaction that bear had to the noise, but I do know he left me alone. That was another rubber-legs night for me.

Black Bear

Bears around here will come inside a house. It doesn’t happen often, but I think one such experience would provide me with enough self-induced epinephrine to keep me awake for a month!

Nights… sometimes it’s necessary to be out in them. The good news is I only got hurt once while out in the dark with one of my pets. Here is a peice from that story within the post of 2.26.8:

“Anyhow, suddenly while I was still outside (I’d been out there already for about 5-10 minutes), I heard a strange scream from a wild animal very close by to where I was standing. Since I couldn’t see much because of how dark it was, I ran as fast as I could to the house (Rascal was ahead of me). Bam . . . down I went into a heap! Is that why they’re called slippers? The ground was full of sharp frozen lumps of dirt and snow and there was nothing to protect my arms and legs from getting cut as I fell and hit the ground hard.”

I thought I was ready to share a story of the night that I experienced which did not have a good ending (it happened many years ago), but now I think I’ll never be able to talk about it without feeling sick.

[Edit added on 5.13.9: Most likely the visitor on the 16th was a black bear. I say that because yesterday morning around 12:30 a.m. my bird feeders were attacked by one. The bear bent the wires of the stronger feeder and smashed the other feeder. Of course that had to happen shortly after buying and installing squirrel baffles!]