the excitement is never ending

"Green acres is the place to be.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide.
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside."

looking for excitement - little do they know what's coming

We walked a field over from our farm looking at a fence line today (a wild wet day with driving rain, hail and wicked winds). The fence line is in pretty good shape. That wasn't the excitement.

Suddenly the big dogs lost their collective minds - they were just ahead of us so Big T ran up to see what they had cornered - he thought raccoon, I thought deer -injured or dead.  We were both wrong

not our actual coyote - ours had every hair on it's body raised in defense too ...

I did not think of pulling my phone out to take picture in the heat of the moment

A coyote had a foot caught in the same fence we were inspecting. The coyote couldn't concentrate on freeing itself with 2 large dogs yelling hysterically at it. Luckily both Sally and Sampson broke away for a minute giving the coyote time to RUN away. I caught Sally but Sampson took off after the coyote for a good 90 seconds or so. Sally is usually easy to hold even when in HIGH drive mode. Not today. She was frantic to join Big T and Sampson. She pulled me over twice. Thank heavens Thea was at home due to the foul weather as she would certainly have been right in the thick of things. Brody stood with me quietly waiting for the big dogs to come back to reality.

Why did we finally see a coyote?
We have a few best guesses - the coyotes are often closer then we suspect and the lousy weather was loud enough to prevent the coyote realizing how close we were. We were in a spot that probably hasn't seen a human in many many years. The coyote probably would have gotten completely away unnoticed, even with those two factors, except for the caught toe. Those three things factored into making the excitement today.


Everyone is OK. And this is a story for all time (ranking right up there with the time Big T was bicycling along and a coyote jumped into the road to assess if he was prey or predator. Luckily the coyote decided predator that time too and took off. Two close encounters is enough for me!

Arley cat is missing

and it is a huge worry.

He's a simple loving dude who doesn't have much common sense.

He spends a lot of life plotting great escapes but somehow I suspect he's regreting this one.

The people of Prince Edward County are amazing though - I called one vet to report him lost - the receptionist gave me two other numbers; each person I called kept trying to think of who else could help. So I've called all the vets in the area, the radio station, the newspaper, the humane society, the dog catcher and am feeling pretty good about humans right now. Everybody was so sympathetic and non judgemental (I guess I'm beating myself up enough). I'm not feeling quite so positive about predators like coyotes right now though.

We are all missing him - dogs, humans and the other cats, like old Nando in the picture with him. Of course I think the kitten Rumour misses him most.

Who sez life in da country is boring?

Not me - ever - and certainly not me last night!
We were up a little later than usual and therefore let the dogs out a little later than usual. Sally took off like a rocket for the chicken part of the yard with Hank and Brody HOT on her heels (the boys were barking and growling like mad).
Big T raced out to see what was happening while I grabbed flashlights. Hank was in the chicken run growling and snapping at something in the pen. The ramp (which is also the night lock) had been knocked aside and there are scratches on the wall of the coop.
The girls were fine but I think it was a pretty close call. Dogs didn't have a scratch on them and settled fairly quickly so whatever it was obviously booted for the hills fast. I suspect a coyote as any racoon I've ever seen cornered fights pretty hard and very loudly and can't get away too fast. Also we hear coyotes every night and have never seen a coon here (not even as road kill).
Sure got our hearts pumping fast ..
We ended up staying up even later and watched the last episode of Entourage for Season 4. Big T will have to get season 5 when he's at work this week!