{"id":958,"date":"2021-10-05T13:45:34","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T18:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/?p=958"},"modified":"2021-10-05T18:10:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T23:10:43","slug":"replanting-starts-and-coyote-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/05\/replanting-starts-and-coyote-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Replanting Starts and Coyote II"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning before breakfast, I coiled up an old battered hose from the yard, gathered the heavy-duty rake,\u00a0 and headed for the burn scar to find the first place to start the replanting with the ten pounds of lovely, wonderful seed from Native American Seed Co.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.seedsource.com\/<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 that arrived yesterday while I was in the city.\u00a0\u00a0 We’d scouted the area yesterday evening and I thought we could use the old holey, kinked, and otherwise worn out hoses to mark out small “easy to do in less than an hour” planting plots.\u00a0 I hung the coiled hose on one shoulder (at first–crossbody worked better) balanced the rake on the same shoulder (not for long) and set off.\u00a0 Also had a light daypack on with my good camera my Leatherman in it, as jeans pockets were otherwise occupied.\u00a0 Made it up there, chose an area with fewer green sprouts than the rest and no dicot sprouts, and laid the hose out, left the rake on the nearby pile of unused but still worthwhile fence posts, and went on from there.\u00a0 Later, Richard went out with a cup of the seed in an old sherbet container and a second hose to mark another plot, planning to rake up the soil inside the first hose, scatter the seed, and then rake it crosswise and stamp on it some to firm it a little.\u00a0 Then go on the perimeter walk.<\/p>\n

In the meanwhile though, he was back at the home place picking up manure, then putting some of it in a cart to haul up to the burn scar and scatter, and then on the way back pick up some rocks from a rock pile to put on the causeway (outlet of the eastern drainage system from our land at the south fence.)\u00a0 In the meantime for me, I walked the north trail, then down to Fox Pavilion, refilled that wildlife waterer, back to the north fence, down it, then south along the creek woods edge to the entrance meadow, by which time it was much warmer and I sat down in the shade on a low branch of\u00a0 juniper for a few minutes.\u00a0 The breeze was blowing toward me from outside<\/p>\n

I was getting ready to leave when I heard a scuffling noise in the bushes just outside the entrance meadow, and then saw a moving shadow out there, and then…on the trail into the meadow came a coyote, smaller than the previous one, seen on the North Fence Trail.\u00a0 It was quite calm trotting confidently along,\u00a0 not looking around, just where it was going…which was toward me.\u00a0\u00a0 I sat very still as it came around the end of the branch I was sitting on and aimed itself at (clearly) going on the clear ground under the next branch over.\u00a0\u00a0 As it came toward me on a near-tangent path, I realized it was going to scent me: it had been upwind of me, when outside, but it was going to pass me downwind.\u00a0 Sure enough, a moment or two later, it put on an excellent “I’m not here, you don’t see me, maybe you’re asleep I hope and if I just keep going….”\u00a0 So it kept going (it was close enough I could see the initial stiffening, the control of the panic reaction, and the slightly faster tempo of the trot as it passed and then went on out of sight as it entered the creek woods proper, northwest of me.<\/p>\n

What a privilege to see a coyote that close, apparently completely unaware until it scented me!\u00a0\u00a0 By the time I realized what it was, I knew if I moved to swing the camera around and try to take a picture it would be too late; by being still, I got to watch it longer and more closely.<\/p>\n

When I was sure it was well out of range, I got up and moved on to the inside trail down through the woods.\u00a0 No monarchs in the frostweed yet, but the voices of winter birds here and there.\u00a0 Then back by the south trail, where–as I came to the causeway–I met R with the rocks.\u00a0 A good *long* walk around with a good wildlife story as well.\u00a0 We spotted some monarchs in a patch of Maximilian Sunflower but as soon as I picked up the camera, the wind picked up and they were gone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning before breakfast, I coiled up an old battered hose from the yard, gathered the heavy-duty rake,\u00a0 and headed for the burn scar to find the first place to start the replanting with the ten pounds of lovely, wonderful seed from Native American Seed Co.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.seedsource.com\/\u00a0\u00a0 that arrived yesterday while I was in the Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,16],"tags":[52,17,51],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-80-acres","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-80acres","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}