One of these guys. Plus, another one.

… a pair of coyotes!

They were pretty sleek and well-fed looking. Not too surprising, because what they were working was a wildfowl preserve, which is currently pretty full of … wait for it … wildfowl. Mostly Sandhill cranes and Canada geese – neither of which, admittedly, I’d be too keen to screw with if I were a 35 pound coyote. But there are a lot of them, all winter long, and I suppose the ‘yotes enjoy pretty good prospects of picking off a sick, old, or injured one.

Saw some sizable flights of ducks passing over – mallards, I’m pretty sure. To my surprise they were headed east – away from the river. The cranes usually move to the river around sunset, although the geese seem to just stay put in the fields.

Also, not to put too fine an edge on it, there are pretty nice houses and an apartment complex or two literally right across the street. So I hope the folks who live there keep their house cats and smaller dogs safely looked up by night.

Emma didn’t bark. She just seemed … real interested in them. For their part, they were entirely unimpressed with either of us. I think they knew there was a high fence in the way, for one thing.

They did move away when I tried to get closer in hopes of snapping a picture of them. Casually. I did get my camera unshipped, but they were far enough away, the light too dim (it was pretty deep twilight), and my photographic skills too uncertain to bother snapping them.

Two or three weeks ago on one of our bi-weekly after-dinner walks Joe and I saw a porcupine on the other side of the RGNC, waddling down the ramp and across the bridge to the Nature Center proper. To its manifest annoyance we followed, albeit at a semi-respectful distance – we were going that way.

I tried taking a couple of pictures of that indignant beast. But while we were closer to it than I wound up to the coyotes, it was full dark. The shots didn’t come out, sadly. (I could almost hear the porcupine muttering to itself, “Damn paparazzi!” as it finally escaped under the fence into the RGNC.)

So who knew you’d see all these damn wild animals near something called the Rio Grande Nature Center? Huh.

What with my usual routine I got distracted. I sat down on the sofa by the coffee table to drink my cocoa and ice my left arm, which seems afflicted with tendonitis. And I managed to upset my Giant Red Mug o’ Ice Water with the power cable to the notebook PC.

This was aggravating but fortunately I didn’t let my blood pressure spike over it. Nothing really got hurt; and it’s the desert, for gods’ sakes; the humidity’s like 9%. I did sop up as much excess water and ice cubes with a bath towel as I could. And when I went to toss ‘em out front Clarice reminded me she was in the area by getting up from her comfortable spot in the neighbor’s yard and hopping the fence.

I took the towel and bowl I’d used inside and fetched out some treats, of a kind my cats currently spurn. Clarice and I have been friends for a long time – a lawn-design sketch I did for the front yard several years ago features a depiction of her lying in a corner of the yard – and it really got cemented when, in emulation of my friend Larry, I started giving her treats.

So anyway we hung out a while. I left the inner front door open and TJ came to the screen. And Clarice hissed at him.

(Yes, there really is a prehistoric monster in here. We’re getting there. Seriously.)

I reproved her for this. My cats used to be friends with her; at least they’d talk to her through the front window when she visited. I haven’t observed them to do this recently, I admit. She wasn’t vehement about it; I think she just wanted to establish her dominance of Outdoors. Which I’ll never willingly let TJ contest anyway.

And Emma started barking. I thought she was barking because she’d heard Clarice hiss at her Beloved Pack Senior. Emma knows Clarice is a friend of the Milán Pack, but would still probably view that as a serious breach of etiquette.

I went inside to soothe TJ’s feelings as he stalked away with tailtip twitching. Emma kept barking. It finally got annoying. I’m never sure how to deal with that: I don’t want to discourage her from barking at threats: it’s her job. But there are times when it’s just too much. Especially when it has no perceptible cause.

At length I noticed she was staring at the fence when she barked. I went out to investigate. Didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I even peered through little gaps. Nothing.

But she persisted. In fact she shifted location and got even more intent and frantic. So I peered again. Thought I saw nothing. Turned away.

And something odd registered in my mind: a sort of humped brownish shape, stirring. For a moment I thought I’d seen a burlap bag flapping in the breeze. Then I got sort of an image of a shifting thing, like some kind of movie special effect.

So our minds can react, it seems, when we see something not only unexpected but so out of place it can’t really be there.

Except when it is there, of course. I turned and looked back through the gap, and this time saw a tortoise wandering around the yard. Not just a tortoise, but a big-ass tortoise. Moving around at a pretty good clip, too.

Yes. Emma was bravely defending Pack and property against a prehistoric monster.

She continued to bark for a long time. In fact she just stopped after the better part of an hour. I figured she and the tortoise were just gonna have to sort things through themselves. And it appears they have.

I thought this remarkable enough to be worth recording for the benefit of my loyal readers. Also, it was getting too long between Emma posts and I was afraid of losing my audience. But it’s a sign of how terrible the times have become that I first checked online to make sure posession of such a creature isn’t illegal.

Because snitching is a terrible, terrible thing. It destroys lives and liberties; it’s going to cause grotesque and widespread evil in this country as government gets more and more frantic about its ability to deliver power and profit to the privileged (which is the only role government has, had, shall have.) Reporting real crimes, against persons or property, is one thing; for the most part it’s our only recourse, although in most cases the response is inadequate, inappropriate, or nonexistent.

But for witch-hunting “crimes,” crimes without victims – no.

Update: Just now Emma started agitating vigorously to be let inside: “Dad! Hello! There’s prehistoric monsters out here!”

Hmm. Just a couple days ago I did a post on this guy:

And today the territory is beset by giant chelonians!

Coincidence? I think not.