I get it now.

The hunting thing.  Never again shall I make fun of the testosterone camo club; IÂ’m thinkinÂ’ of becoming one with camouflage, myself.

Meanwhile, I am brainstorming my latest idea – creating a special ops unit:

COYOTE SPECIAL FORCES

Last night was great!  And while we didnÂ’t bag any coyotes or other things that go bump in the night, I can see that thereÂ’s gonna be a need to “specialize”…you knowÂ…think like an alien-coyote-bigfoot in order to truly enjoy the final thrill of getting whatever it is.  So as long as we have no losses of livestock or close encounters of the up close and personal kind, itÂ’ll be worth the wait.

Truthfully, I really didnÂ’t expect to shoot the prize our very first night.

RECAP:

We started early with getting the FarmÂ’s twelve disciples (all our cats) inside the basement and locking them IN.  The last thing we needed was one of our felines tagging along – and they would!  Then we corralled Bandit in the garage; bless his heart, he thought he was in trouble – but a few treats later and he was over it.  Then we let everything settle down and get quiet for the night.

My sons were dressed in their camo and night gear faster than I could blinkÂ….Amazing.  Simply, amazing.  That just doesnÂ’t happen on normal days; it could take me days to get my youngest son to put on clean clothes as opposed to the ones heÂ’s been living (and sometimes sleepingÂ…) in all week long.

I had already perused AlanÂ’s closet and found his old camo coveralls – hey, weÂ’re talkinÂ’ “thermal and quilted”.  You know what?  Men have great clothes.  They have way bigger pockets and the stitching is heavy duty and the inside thighs are reinforcedÂ…Â….or is it theyÂ’re just bigger legged?

Sorry.  Tangent.

Okay, so weÂ’re dressed.  Alan had already done the gun check:  I had the .12 gauge shot gun, the youngest (a.k.a. “Huck”) took the .20 gauge and Sam the Man had the .22 with 14 shots.  By golly if a charging rhino had come out of those pines, we wouldÂ’ve nailed him.   We had our “conversations” concluded because once outside the house, we had to be, well, one would hope, quiet.

We moved quickly – but quietly (minus some oversized boot garumping sounds).  The boys took their seats and I put out the ham.  I took my seat next to my youngest, who had eyes six times their normal size at this point, and then we readied our guns on top of the hay bale.

And we sat.

For a long, long time.

“We” wiggled some too.

My nose itched the entire time I sat there.  It had not itched the whole day until I sat down in that chair.

Then “we” needed to whisper...(like in "O' Brother Where Art Thou"..."Do - Not - Seek - the - treasure", but in our case the coyotes).

I began thinking how I would have been a smart homeschooling mother to have taught my children sign language for moments like these.  But then I thought better of it - well, because it was dark.

We kept hearing “grass”.  My youngest son would look at me with his eyes so big, I think I saw the back side of his eyeballs.  I think itÂ’s quite amazing that I can sit out on our back porch at night and truly enjoy the sounds of the night; but let us be out “in the night” and on guard to hunt something – something we donÂ’t have a clue what it is – and you hear every single blade of grass that is bent.  Your senses really come alive out in the wild and in the dark, especially the "itching" senses.  There was a bird nearby in a bush – IÂ’d swear he was telling the coyotes where we were – and that hopping bird sounded like a bear jumping from limb to limb.

Eventually, we could hear coyotes in neighboring pastures yipping.  I think they may have been mocking us.  Then we heard gunshots in the not too far distance.  The alien-coyote-bigfoots must be harrassing and aggravating everybody around here.

I couldnÂ’t help but let my mind wander while we sat – for as long as we sat – and I thought about how this could easily be how we had to feed ourselves one day.  (Talk about your "SlimFast" diet plan...)  I thought about the pioneers of yesteryear and how hard it must have been to come home empty-handed.  I thought about how in the world my sons may tell this story to my future grandchildren one day.  But the biggest revelation I came up with: if I had some of that camouflage stick make-up and twigs attached to my camo hat, I have no doubt, then those coyotes would come right out for us to shoot them!!

I’ll keep y’all posted on our progress – this you can be sure of!

Harriette K. Jacobs

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