The Secret Life of Lawns
The coyotes are back.
More accurately, they never went away.
When I last wrote about this, I’d discovered the coyotes in the back yard and simply scared them off, making noise with a pan lid and a spoon. What happened next: I was on a Zoom call (with my horror writers’ critique group, appropriately enough) when I saw a coyote (the male, I can tell because he’s smaller and mangier than the female) hungrily attack a squirrel, maybe 15 feet away from my head. Luckily there was a pane of glass between him and me. I temporarily excused myself from the call (they didn’t see the coyote but DID see my horrified reaction), and scared the coyote away.
After the call I talked with a couple of my neighbors. Both were dog owners. One was concerned at the ruckus his large dogs made when the coyotes came around, the other had small dogs and was very legitimately concerned with one of her dogs being snatched up and carried away.
The guy with the big dogs followed the coyotes’ paths around the neighborhood from his deck, often late at night. He knew their habits pretty well. He’d seen them walking down the middle of the street, unafraid. Not because they were sick or hungry, merely acclimated to living near people. His theory was that they were nesting in an area just past our fenceline. Their entry into the neighborhood streets is right along my fenceline.
So. I dropped my laissez-faire attitude, as this now affected others. I won’t bore you with all the options I perused, but I’m now ramping up my efforts to scare the coyotes away (I’ll never go so far as to hurt them, unless a pet or human life is in actual danger). We have noisemakers made of soda cans and pennies by both the porch doors. I’ve installed four solar-powered blinky LED lights that are supposed to mimic the eyes of other animals (assumedly the animals being mimicked do not actually have blinky LED eyes, so I’m a bit skeptical).
I almost bought wolf urine, until I read the reviews and learned the stuff really reeks, so badly more than one user said they had to burn their work gloves after they applied it. So I’m holding off on buying wolf urine and instead am using my own. Yes, I’m peeing along our fenceline whenever nature calls. I’ve only gotten a few feet of fence done so far, but I’ll keep at it until I’ve peed along the entire fence.
I’m not going to deny what a satisfying feeling this is. Marking my territory by peeing at the periphery. Protecting my land and my home. My own urine is not as pungent as that of a wolf, but it will have to do. For now.
The whole ordeal has reminded me of my fascination with the secret life of lawns (I actually named one of the chapters this in my first novel, Life Under Water). We pretend control over them, with mowers and weed wackers, fertilizer and pesticides, sprinkler schedules and garden gnomes and grills. But there are a whole host of animal populations that we share our lawns with, from the the next door neighbor’s cat to bears just out of hibernation. Security cameras give us an occasional glimpse of this, whenever an animal trots down a driveway or inspects a Ring doorbell. But it’s a false security, tricking us into believing we are aware of all that goes on around us, and have any real control over it.
We’re just part of the community, no different than the coyotes.
Time for commerce. Thanks for those who’ve bought stories these last few months; it’s rewarding.
The links:
April’s story: Prince Albert in a Can
March’s story: Fuck, Marry, Kill
February’s story: Veronica Scissors
My first novel, Life Under Water
My website: jeffmwood.com.
My Amazon page.
My erotic flash fiction series, Serious Moonlight (as J G Cain)
Peace.
