"HEY THERE BIG FELLA!"

This weekend we are hosting about 100 ladies here at Camp Maranatha where I live and work. The forecast is calling for a foot or so of snow between now and tomorrow morning. In fact, as I type snow is whispering against the window and settling quietly in the woods round about. It's pretty and all, but c'mon this is April! We get strange weather here in the mountains. It's just a forty minute drive to flip-flops and palm trees, but here in Idyllwild smoke is curling from chimneys and people are adding hot cocoa to their grocery lists.

This morning I stepped out at 7:30 to turn on heaters in the rooms where our guests will be staying, and as I walked through a corridor along the backside of the Oak Lodge's bottom floor I met a coyote who rounded the corner ahead of me. He was loping along quite confidently and advanced to within eight feet of me before suddenly becoming aware of my presence. Then it did the funniest thing I think I'll probably ever see a coyote do; first it crouched down with its front paws splayed out, ready to dodge if I lunged at it (which was the very last thing I would ever think of doing), its yellow eyes were all wild with fear, and it made a kind of yowling sound. Of course, I stopped dead in my tracks  as soon as I saw it and called out "Hey there big fella!" which I am sure you'll agree was kind of a weird thing to say under the cirsumstances. I wonder if the coyote's yowling noise would be considered equally bizarre among the coyote kind. To the coyote's left was a six foot tall retaining wall, and beyond that a slope which led up to a road which runs along the Oak Lodge's second story. At first I thought the coyote might go all Taylor MItchell on me, but then it surprised me by trying to jump up over the wall. It failed miserably and ended up landing awkwardly on it's behind before skedaddling back around the corner the way it had come.

My encounter with the coyote left my heart threatening to pound right out of my chest and I felt tingly all over, but still I had the presence of mind to shout after the coyote, "Don't be a stranger now!"  and a second later "Talktoyoulater!"