TERRE HAUTE —
Despite the cold and the ever-present winter breezes that blow across our hill these days, I often find myself, even in the blue evenings, standing on the walk near my cabin, looking at the stars or watching for the last red-tailed hawks of the day as they float by in the drafts. I hear the coyotes in the fields across the wetlands from our place, too. Their howls are lonely and frightening, and they make me glad that I am standing where I am and that I have water and woods between us.
Ask anyone who lives away from the lights of towns, and they might tell you that coyotes are thriving. They are more numerous than in the past, at least it seems to me. Just a few years back a state representative pushed legislation to put a $5 bounty on coyotes, and you’ll meet more than a few folks who believe that ’yotes are the reason for fewer rabbits and game birds.
I’m not so sure about that. Oh, I know that coyotes run off with the occasional sheep, and they are notorious murderers of housecats, but, for the most part, they tend to make the majority of their snacks at the expense of field mice, although, they aren’t above raiding an available henhouse or dog bowl. The coyotes around our place seem to be heard much more often than seen, for it is only rarely that I’ll catch a flash of brown fur sprinting across an open field or broad-jumping a roadside ditch. Otherwise, they are mostly invisible.
Because I own no livestock nor enjoy hunting, I hold no grudge against coyotes. Even though they are labeled as “nuisance” wildlife by our Department of Natural Resources, I take that appellation with a grain of salt, for the beavers that work in the wetlands below us, the gray squirrels I see scaling the huge sycamore tree outside my window and the woodpeckers that visit our frontyard feeders are listed as such, too. So are red foxes and Great Blue Herons and the aforementioned hawks, but I have no ax to grind with them, either, and I have simply chosen to leave them alone.
The most egregious sins committed against coyotes are by a select few who have captured them in the wild, then “trained” hunting dogs to tear their captive prey to shreds. Some pens have even been equipped with hot wires that shock the animals while they try to defend themselves. It is people like these who give the sport of hunting a black eye. My father and my grandfather were hunters; neither would have allowed a coyote to die that way, and I don’t think any of my friends who hunt would allow it, either.
CeAnn Lambert runs the Indiana Coyote Rescue Center in Bringhurst, a small town midway between Lafayette and Logansport. She says that loopholes in our state laws have allowed coyote-fox kill pens to exist under other names, like “dog training grounds” and “penning.”
“Eighty-six percent of Indiana citizens do not hunt or trap, and most of the ethical hunters in Indiana are against this activity,” Lambert says. “The Indiana Wildlife Federation, HSUS [Humane Society of the United States], PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] and Born Free USA have also come out against this horrible bloodsport that is so enjoyed by a small percentage of our citizens. Many people in Indiana still can’t believe that this is really happening to our precious wildlife.”
Indiana law does allow land owners to hunt and trap coyotes on their own property year-round without a license, while licensed hunting and trapping seasons run from mid-October to February.
Last year, my wife and I found a dead coyote along the road we walk. It was both larger and prettier than we thought it would be. It was hardly the scruffy indigent that I’d always imagined coyotes to be, and we admired its fine fur and clean teeth and beautiful tail. We though it had been hit by a car, for there were no obvious bullet holes in it. A chicken coop was within sight, though, so I’m not sure its death was mere coincidence.
If you haven’t read John Steinbeck’s great travelogue, “Travels With Charley,” I suggest you pick up a copy. Like most memoirs, Steinbeck’s book is often seen as his swan song, as his statement of discontent, of his longing to return to an America that wasn’t around anymore. I don’t see the book as that at all, and one passage — about coyotes — shows me that Steinbeck, by the time he wrote it in 1960, had simply come to accept the fact that his country was changing, and so was he.
Late in the book, Steinbeck included a passage about his encounters with two coyotes as he drove across the “terrestrial hell” of the Mojave Desert. As he took a break with his traveling companion — his poodle, Charley — Steinbeck drank a can of beer in the shade of his camper (named Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s battered horse). He spied the coyotes as they watched him from 50 yards away. Slowly, he brought the animals into the telescopic sights of his .222-caliber rifle and its “long-ranged stings.”
“They were favored animals, not starved, but well furred, the golden hair tempered with black guard hairs. Their little lemon-yellow eyes were plainly visible in the glass,” Steinbeck wrote.
In his mind, Steinbeck considered the coyotes “vermin,” that they “steal chickens” and “thin the ranks of quail,” that “they must be killed,” that they “are the enemy.” But he didn’t shoot them.
“… I did not fire. My training said, ‘Shoot!’, and my age replied, ‘There isn’t a chicken within 30 miles, and if there are, they aren’t my chickens,’” he wrote.
Steinbeck said he guessed he was “too old and too lazy to be a good citizen,” when it came to his civic duty to kill the coyotes. He went on to relate how he not only spared their lives but also he acted on an old Chinese proverb he’d once heard, that a man who saves a life becomes responsible for it. He emptied two cans of Charley’s dog food for the coyotes before he hit the road again.
The coyote hunters out there will have to forgive me, but I suppose I’d have done the same thing.
Mike Lunsford can be reached by e-mail at hickory913@aol.com or by writing to him c/o The Tribune-Star, P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Read more of Mike’s stories at http://tribstar.com/mike_lunsford, and visit his website at www.mikelunsford.com. He is currently working on his third book.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: ‘Too old and too lazy’ to deal with coyotes
- Mike Lunsford
-
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Feeding time at the homestead draws a host of new guests
I stepped outside into the warmth of an unusually mild early March morning last week to do what I always do just before I grab my briefcase and book bag and lunch bag and head off to work. It’s nearly always dark when I leave, even as the sun gets up earlier and earlier in the late winter, so I often go about the business of feeding our cats with porch lights on and a flashlight in hand.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Taking a road less traveled in this illogical life
If you can still recall reading the poetry of Robert Frost in your high school English class years ago, I imagine that you can conjure up a line or two from his “The Road Not Taken.”
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Books open our eyes to that which we will never see
I got a letter last week from a friend, Sister Margaret Quinlan, who lives amidst the beauty of the St. Mary-of-the-Woods campus. Besides the email space and the time she invests in describing the flowers and trees and birds that she shares with her roomies out there, as well as her accounts of teaching and traveling, Margaret most often writes about books. She loves them, and she knows I do, too.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Hoping to master the art of taking a nap
I got away from work as early as I could one day last week. It was a cloudy day, filled with grayness and rain, and my head felt as if I had inhaled my pillow the night before. My throat suggested I’d swallowed a wood rasp, too, and my eyes felt as though I was looking through someone else’s glasses. Yet, I had work do, this column being on the list of chores.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Windy companion finally gives him the cold shoulder
The wind came to visit us this week. We live on the knob of a hill that overlooks a Raccoon Creek valley, and it is a breezy spot year-round, but this wind was the kind that ushers in a full-blown front from Canada, perhaps just to remind us that cold weather is going to be the boss around here for a while. No matter how surprising our mild winter has been so far, this kind of wind tells us not to expect many more warm days over the next few months.
-
SIDELINES: Good for even a traditional Classic buff
Lights down, tree out, another year gone at the Classic.
-
THE OFF SEASON: The more things change, the more they keep changing
I must have had at least a dozen people ask at my son’s wedding a few weeks ago whether I cried, or “how I was handling losing him.” I think they all knew just how tight I am with my two kids, and thought I must have come completely unglued when it finally hit me that he was on his own for good, that the rules had changed nearly as much in my life when he said ,“I do,” as they did for him.
-
Lunsford signing new book at Brazil Coffee Grounds
Parke County writer Mike Lunsford will be signing his latest book, “A Place Near Home” (Shade Tree Press; $15) from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at Coffee Grounds, Bakery and Coffee Shop in Brazil.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: In the neighborhood with the ‘fantastic’ Mr. Fox
As we drove home late one night last week, my wife and I, both a bit drowsy and anxious for a warm bed and a long nap, were surprised to see a red fox as it darted across the road. He made his appearance in a flash — just a bit of nose and fur and bushy tail — as he jumped out of a ditch in front of our car and was caught in the glare of our headlights on his way to the relative safety of an apple orchard.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: The lizard wore long johns, and other Halloween tales
We stocked our house with a supply of Halloween candy last week; Joanie and I stopped into the new dollar store in town and filled a grocery cart with Butterfingers and Baby Ruths and Three Musketeers bars. Every aromatic bit of it has been calling to me from the orange-and-black baskets we keep on a living room trunk ever since.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Here’s to the simple beauty of an untended garden…
I can hear a combine eating its way across a nearby cornfield as I write this on a Saturday evening. It is a sound that signals the end of one season and the beginning of anot
-
The Off Season: Listening to Mozart is a ‘purr-fect’ way to relax
Regardless of what some people may believe, classical music fans are not snobs. They come from all walks of life, fall into all income brackets, and they’re not required to understand or analyze anything to which they’re listening; they just need to enjoy themselves.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Fall’s arrival heralded in ever-present fencerows
As much as I hate summer to leave us, I am happy that fall is just around the corner. It has been a bone-dry season, one in which I’ve watched my yard bake and crack like an old pie crust. My wife and I are still spending our evenings going about the business of watering flowers, standing with a dribbling hose in our hands, optimistically hoping that our drought will be broken because we’ve tempted the weather fates to do us one better and give us a good rain.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: The value of hard work goes well beyond a paycheck
Years ago, I used to drive into Rosedale to get my workday started with a big cup of black coffee. Every morning, Monday through Friday, until the town grocery store’s business dried up and blew away, you could have found me slipping through a back door — left unlocked for the early birds — of the old Red and White, 15 minutes before it opened for official business.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Life’s little conveniences actually can be quite annoying
I am aware that much of the language I use is outdated, stodgy, old-fashioned; I apologize.
-
The Off Season: Another sad passing: One-time trendsetter can’t keep up
I wandered into the local mall bookstore the other day. My wife and I had come to town with a list of chores to do and things to buy, but whenever we venture anywhere near a place with book shelves and sales tables and racks of paperbacks, we’re attracted to the scent of ink and the sight of book covers like bees to clover .
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Overheated in Hobart and other vacation tales…
My family climbed into our van and headed to Michigan a few weeks ago, just as we do every other year or so, to stay on the great lake there, for we have come to love its cool breezes and blue water and lighthouses.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Silence is wonderful, as long as you don’t take it too far
I have visited this topic — how it is often only through inconvenience that we come to appreciate the comforts we have in life — before.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: His tolerance for insects ends with sawyer beetles
As I sloshed a can of water over a pot of red petunias a Sunday morning ago, I saw a pine sawyer beetle make its way slowly up the vinyl siding near my front door. I swatted it to the concrete, and smashed it with my shoe … with impunity, I might add.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Storm damage makes you appreciate home
My wife and I hadn’t been into town for a good while when we drove in from our place to visit her doctor and my favorite hardware store last week.
-
Paying respect in more way than one way…
It has become a habit of mine on Mother’s Day to go to Rosedale Cemetery and lay a few irises on my mom’s grave.
-
The Off Season: On the trail with Max the Mushroom Cat
The wet weather and a busy calendar have kept my wife and me from doing what we’ve really wanted to do for a while. Ever since the thermometer began to stay consistently above 40 and the grass started to green, we’ve wanted to get outside, get some sun on our arms, and get down to the wetlands to watch the geese make their landings with a flourish and a honk.
-
THE OFF SEASON: So much to do; so little time…
My wife’s aunt, Martha Jean McCarthy, passed away earlier this month; she was 85 years old. Martha Jean was kind and generous and busy her entire life.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: A lesson plan for public schools
I am an advocate of public education; I pull no punches about that. I have taught in public schools for 32 years, and I think it is an inherently American institution.
-
THE OFF SEASON: Craning to see elegance in flight
Just before midnight last night, spring officially slipped quietly into our back yards, but I doubt that any of us noticed it much this morning as we slurped our coffee or downed our eggs over this newspaper.
- More Mike Lunsford Headlines
-
Astrodome Fades As Houston Decides Fate
Franciscan Files Tell Stories of Priest Abuse
Flight Diverted After Suspicious Note
Panel Recommends Against Routine Prostate Test
Wildfire Destroys 2 Homes
Remains of Veterans Found in Basement Are Buried
Fired Lingerie Employee Claims Discrimination
Giant Bull Head Draws Drivers to South Dakota
Secret Service Boss: 'I Apologize'
Joplin Remembers Deadly Tornado, 1 Year Later
Egyptians Vote in Historic Presidential Election
8 Hurt in Oklahoma Shooting After NBA Playoff
Blacks Seek to Find Their Own Missing
Serial Stabbings Suspect Guilty of Murder
Joplin Marches to 'Remember' Tornado Victims
Daisy Sizzles in Sexy Swimwear
Boy to Rescuers: 'Do You Have a Plan?'
Facebook Shares Continue Negative Slide
US Airways: Diverted Flight Has 'Landed Safely'
A Few Odd Business Sparks but Europe Gloomy
Raw Video: Tornado Appears During Wedding
Kristen Stewart says no shame in explicit love scenes
Bonus: Tan Mom Goes Nude
Daycare worker burns child’s face with chemicals
Kanye West Wants Kim Kardashian to Look More Natural Like Kate Middleton
Tornado Touches Down During Wedding
Snooki Reveals Sex of Baby
Toddler Drives Toy Into Traffic
Homeowner in boxers fights robbers on front lawn
Boys Like Girls Reveal Album Release: Bamboozle 2012
911 Operator Asleep During Emergency Call
FIRST LOOK: 'The Great Gatsby' Trailer
Creative dad makes Photoshop magic with daughters
Donald Driver, 'DWTS' Winner & Thriller Killer?
KTLA Video EXCLUSIVE: Mother, Children Struck by Van
Long Story Short: Miley Cyrus: Sex is magic
American Idol Finale Recap: Phillip Phillips and Jessica Sanchez Face Off for Last Time
PETA protesters barbeque a human
Michael McKean Struck By Car
