Privy Counsel - Strangers in the Night

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Retrospect: September 2006

How did that Sinatra tune go?

Strangers in the night,

Two lonely peepers

Staring at the sight ...

...... ... or something like that

Okay, so I left off the potty tales with noises in the bushes around the outdoor throne, followed by the recent story about strange noises in the barn . These events were within a couple of days of each other and both occurred after darkness had settled in. I'm thinking that commenter JennyE came the closest to guessing the identity of the unseen culprit(s) but we may never know for sure one way or the other, quite thankfully.

A day or so after those events occurred, I headed out for a walk and stopped by the little forever puddle about 30 feet east of the moving trailer. I noticed an unusual splat of dark in the grass and took a closer look.



Hmmm ... juniper berries and all sorts of half-digested things that gave some wild diner a real good run for their efforts. I immediately thought of raccoons but this offering had a little more serious volume to it.

I took a careful hop over some open water and came around through the sage to the mesa side of the bog. What's this? Look at that heel! That was certainly no coyote passing through nor was that scat anything passing through a coyote! Fortunately, this was long before Brou and Daisy had come to live with us.



Before the next rain could obliterate the tracks, I brought some plaster of Paris over from the Rat and made castings of the prints. I decided that if I ever get around to casting my own stepping stones someday, I wanted to include those prints in some of them.

Virgil and Earl both stopped by that week and confirmed my thoughts - that we had been visited by a bear. Earl was very concerned that it had made itself at home so close to the Rat. He suspected that it might have been a nuisance bear which had been relocated from a populated area. Fortunately, that was the last time we saw or heard anything of the like again. T-o-u-c-h wood.

If nothing else, it made for great conversation when Slim arrived back that winter with his cattle. And as usual, Slim was up to sharing a good story of his own. Now you gotta know Slim to really appreciate the telling of it. He's got that charming boyish intensity that takes you right along with him. He leaned forward, elbows on knees and looked at each of us intently eye-to-eye as he began:

"Yeah, I had me a run-in with a bear once. Had cattle up in the mountains, noticed something not right and promised myself to check it out first thing in the morning. Well ... I had too much of a good time that night and woke up a little ... you know ... under the weather? So anyway ... I haul my draggin' butt into the pick-up and head back up there. I get out at the gate just about the time a big ol' bear wanders out from the trees, couldn't a been 30 feet away! Well, I'll tell ya, I never lost a hangover so fast in my life as when I realized that I had only one bullet in my pistol and a pocketknife and that was it." We fell into uncontrollable hysterics when he did a quick wide-eyed double take as he concluded "Just then the bear took a couple of steps in my direction and, I ain't kidding ya, I sh-t mehself!!!"

Now here's the strange part; it wasn't until trying to write this down tonight that I realized that we never did hear the end of that story! Last thing I remember about it was me sliding down the wingback unto the floor, holding my aching sides and wiping the tears out of my eyes when suddenly I smelled the lasagna and garlic bread in the oven and realized that supper was probably ready a long half hour before. At my mention of food being well beyond ready, they stampeded past me to the table and the story got trampled along with me in the rush. Remind me to have him finish that story when he shows up for the winter again.

Next story? It'll be back to current events (as in - "there's never a dull moment around here"). This little photo snip below is a hint for Bruno of what's coming up. We're talking SERIOUS guy fun plus ... sigh ... the usual "Whuh, Geez, who woulda thought THAT would happen?"


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