Morning Visitor

I was working on my first cup of coffee this morning when the gate bell rang.  We have a doorbell on our gate so we know when someone drives or walks onto our driveway.  The bell rings in the house, in my studio and in Ron's office.  If you are as old as I am, think of the hose you used to drive over at the gas station that rang a bell in the office so they knew you were there.  Yup.  That's what we have.  It's great.  I know when the mail man arrives or UPS or a customer or Ron going out to the store.

Not only will a car or truck or person set off the gate bell, so will the dog or a cat and probably a tumbleweed if we had such things blowing down our driveway.  When the bell went off the morning I didn't even get up to look.  I knew the gate was closed and assumed it was one of the cats.  Ron, however, stepped to window to check it out and found a coyote trotting up our driveway.  I went running to see but of course didn't think to grab my phone so I have no picture of the little guy.  The picture above looks as much like him as I could find online

The coyote looked like a pup - all ears and legs.  I've never seen ears that big on anything that looks even slightly like a dog.  This guy was small and thin but without the slinky look that most adults have.  Ron ran out to scare him away and I followed right along.  We didn't see him slither under the gate but when our dog Sadie came out to help me feed she did not head for the large shrub which could have been the coyote's only hiding place if he didn't scamper off the property.

Interestingly, I had no thought of shooting at the coyote.  I realized they will take down small livestock, dogs and cats but he just didn't look all that fierce or threatening.  I'm happy to shoot the wobbly skunks because they are almost always infected with rabies.  And I'm willing to shoot at the armadillos, but never do, when they do such a complete job of digging up my newly planted shrubs.  This little guy just looked like he needed to find his family.

I checked out coyotes online.  What we have here in Texas is the Southeastern Coyote.  The commonly give birth in the spring and by July the pups are old enough to be eating real food in addition to being nursed so they go out to learn how to hunt with their parents.  I'm guessing this little guy got lost along the way.