Winter wonders

Today I’m reporting on two events that are, unfortunately from my perspective, unrelated. A couple of mornings ago, wile taking our dogs for their very early walk, hours before sunrise, we heard a pack of coyotes in the nearby woods. Our dogs were unphased but I got excited, although I don’t understand dog psychology enough to have any sort of handle on why our two go crazy barking at some weird sound on the tv but ignore a pack of coyotes. Perhaps they didn’t want to attract attention by barking?

The second event is the discovery, a couple of days ago, of fresh pocket gopher mounds near the wet spot behind the house. In January, in Minnesota, the ground is still unfrozen enough for those critters to be tunneling instead of hibernating or whatever they usually do in winter. If only the pack of coyotes would pass through the yard and dig out and eat the gopher(s), I’d be one of those known as a “happy camper.” Instead, I’m going to see if I can shovel into a tunnel and set a couple of traps, unless gophers can tunnel through soil too tough for me to dig? In which case we’ve just started our list of spring chores.

September 2023: coyote passing through back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

At least we’re not (yet) dealing with bitter cold or deep snow. I’m truly grateful for a lack of both, especially after some of the polar vortices we’ve experienced the past few winters. It has been cold enough to make soup and stew entirely appropriate. For now, I’ll settle for that.

Developing the Land

By Stephen Behrendt

For six nights now the cries have sounded in the pasture:

coyote voices fluting across the greening rise to the east

where the deer have almost ceased to pass

now that the developers have carved up yet another section,

filled another space with spars and studs, concrete, runoff.

Five years ago you saw two spotted fawns rise

for the first time from brome where brick mailboxes will stand;

only three years past came great horned owls

who raised two squeaking, downy owlets

that perished in the traffic, skimming too low across the road

behind some swift, more fortunate cottontail.

It was on an August afternoon that you drove in,

curling down our long gravel drive past pasture and creek,

that you saw, flickering at the edge of your sight,

three mounted Indians, motionless in the paused breeze,

who vanished when you turned your head.

We have felt the presence on this land of others,

of some who paused here, some who passed, who have left

in the thick clay shards and splinters of themselves that we dig up,

turn up with spade and tine when we garden or bury our animals;

their voices whisper on moonless nights in the back pasture hollow

where the horses snort and nicker, wary with alarm.

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