A Crazy Experience

 Recently, DH was out of town on a snowmobiling trip with DS2 and friends, and I was here holding down the fort, tending the animals, keeping the fire stoked, etc.  One evening, when I was stoking the fire (which is DH's job when he's not gone on trips) after caring for the horses and chickens for the night, I heard dogs barking.  Not just any dogs, these had the distinctive voices of hunting dogs.  Looking around, across fields both north and west--towards where the roads are--I noticed several trucks idling on the shoulders.  Coyote hunter trucks.

So, the dogs I heard were definitely coyote hunting dogs, and they were, it sounded like, in the woods north of my property.  I went back to stoking the fire, one biggest-I-could-carry-and-fit-through-the-wood-boiler-door chunk of wood at a time. 

Then, from the corner of my eye, I caught movement over on the east perimeter fence line of my pastures.  Turning my head for a better look, it was two deer, does, running from north to south, spooked up by those dogs.  They ran on past, heading for the marsh to hide in.

I kept stoking the fire, carefully putting the wood in the boiler in neatly placed rows and stacks, trying to stuff as much as I could in there to make sure the fire would make it through the (very cold, around zero degree F) night.  Turning and walking to the wood pile for another piece, I was startled to see a coyote run right between me and my barn.  Okay, he was about 30ish feet away from me, but, WOW that's close!  I've never been that close to a coyote before, even when I'm up in the deer stand. 

He ran right past the front of my barn, and down the driveway, headed west towards the road. Now I could hear the dogs heading towards me from the east, on my own property, and soon they came bounding through the backyard also heading west.

I figured that was that, as the hunters' trucks had moved along the road to be in front of this little place here now.  The coyote was heading toward the road, driven by the dogs.  Surely any minute I would hear the crack of a gun and the coyote would be successfully harvested.

Finished stoking the wood boiler, I went to the backside of the garage to grab the trash bin, as it was the day we put the trash out at the end of the driveway (also DH's job) to be picked up the next morning.  Trundling through the snow pulling the bin behind me, I realized the dogs' barking had not only changed from chasing to 'treed' as it were, but that they sounded like they were in the front yard.  

Coming around the front corner of the garage, I could see one dog at the bottom of my front steps, baying, and the other dog on my front porch also baying. And a coyote on my front porch, to the side of the front door, standing in a faceoff with the dog!

Oh hello!  Never in a million years did I ever expect to see a coyote on my front porch.  With him right up against the house like that no way would anyone be able to get a shot at him.  

So what, you ask, did I do?  I let go of the trash bin, went tromping through the snow waving my arms and in my most authoritarian animal commanding voice loudly said

"Get off my porch!"

The dog at the bottom step looked at me coming it's way using my manly don't mess with me supreme commander voice and it backed away into the yard.  I climbed the steps, still standing tall and waving my arms and commanding the dog and coyote remove themselves from my porch.  Which the dog reluctantly did, giving up his prey to this crazy lazy.  

Now I'm standing about six feet away from a wild coyote.  Making sure I was not blocking his route to the steps, I looked at him and he looked at me and I said "Get off my porch!"  But he didn't listen like the dogs did.  Rather, he looked at me, looked down the steps, looked at the dogs, and chose to go curl up in the corner.

By now the coyote hunters have figured out their quarry is housebound, and two of the trucks are driving up my driveway.  I went down the steps, met one of them as the truck came to a stop, and, as he was apologizing profusely, told him the coyote was apparently not planning to get off the porch under it's own power.

Long story short, I took the trash bin the rest of the way to the road, the hunters gathered up their dogs, then, with the coyote still determined it wasn't chancing running anywhere, got a catch rope and took the coyote off my porch.

Meanwhile, I got my mail out of the mailbox, and talked to another one of the hunters whose truck was still pulled off the side of the road.  He assured me, before I had a chance to say more than "well that was pretty crazy to find the coyote on my porch" that they had gotten him off, and would 'take him to the field and let him go again'.  At which point, I looked him in the eye and said "Really?  I would think you'd take him safely away from the buildings and pop him one.  I mean, that's what I do with raccoons that I catch in my live trap."

I'm pretty sure, because I'm a woman, he expected me to be all 'poor little coyote, don't hurt him'.  Nah.  The coyote population needs to be kept down.  I'm always watching for their tracks around the chicken coop, and would definitely shoot at any coyote I found sniffing around over there.  

Just make it quick, and dispatch them as humanely as possible.  

And don't chase it onto my porch!

As they were pulling down my driveway to leave, and I was walking back to the house, one of the hunters did introduce himself, and ask if DH still lived here (he and DH met years ago and have sometimes had words in regards to the coyote hunting as this guy is supposed to call/text DH and give him a heads up if they are hunting near our property where the dogs might be coming through onto this little place here).  I told him yes, DH does. We talked a few more minutes, me never letting on that DH was currently out of town, not just at work at the moment.

Because I may be brave enough to command strange dogs and coyotes off my porch, but I am not crazy enough to ever tell anyone that DH isn't home and won't be for days!