South Texas Quail Hunt

Steve and I just returned from four days in South Texas, where he hunted quail and I took notes. I had no idea quail hunting was so complicated. We took two trucks of five hunters each, and at one point during the shoot, one of the hunters turned to me and said, “This thing runs like a finely tuned Swiss watch,” which astonished me, given I was thinking along the lines of “organized chaos.” But the more I watched, the more I came to understand there is a method to the madness – that it takes skill, patience, and solid experience to avoid shooting your companion, your dogs, your dogs’ handlers, or the person in the truck taking notes.

We had a great time, and in addition to hunting, Steve took some nice photographs of the region’s birds while I walked the ranch, encountering a rattlesnake. I heard it before I saw it, its rattle warning me I’d gotten too close. I backpedaled at once, taking the long way back instead of the shortcut I’d planned on.

Later that afternoon, Steve took this pic of a wild tom turkey on the ranch.

Big Bunch of Laughing Coyotes

I was reading DRY RAIN STORIES by Pete Fromm, and had gotten almost through "Sage and Salt," when the protagonist hears the "lunatic yippings and laughings of coyotes" and then realizes he isn't hearing coyotes at all, but shouting and laughing, coming from a park.

About a week after our family moved onto Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in south Texas, Jena (who was 13 at the time), came busting into the house at dusk, complaining that a bunch of partiers were whooping it up at the Overlook, which had closed at sunset and was therefore off-limits to visitors. Steve stepped out of the house and walked down the dirt road to investigate, returning a few minutes later, smiling. Turned out the revelers weren’t trespassers at all, but a bunch of coyotes. We all laughed at that. We still recollect that story sometimes -- how funny it is that coyotes and humans sound so much alike.