Encounter With Coyote

Was driving through a nearby valley last night. Dark, moon not yet up. The ’50s station on Sirius radio had good stuff playing. Everley Brothers, “Wake Up Little Suzy,” and a coyote crossed the road and stood along the side. A few of the local coyotes are a bit scraggly, but this one was healthy, handsome, a fine specimen of Canis species…I stopped, rolled window down. He (looked like a male) just stood there, maybe 20 feet away, looking at me, music playing, he had to be listening:

“Whatta we gonna tell your mama,

Whatta we gonna tell your pa,

Whatta we gonna tell our friends,

when they say “ooh-la-la…”

We looked at each other for maybe 10 seconds, then he loped off…

Later, driving home along the coast: “Fannie Mae” by Buster Brown, “Save the Last Dance For Me” by The Drifters, then “Maybeline” by Chuck Berry, it sounded so exuberant, fine for this moonlit night.

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

2 Responses to Encounter With Coyote

  1. nice that you and the coyote share a taste in music…

    couple of years ago, my husband was watching a LOUD science fiction action movie on t.v.. I came downstairs and walked into the kitchen without turning lights on. Something large caught my eye in backyard. Startled at first thought it was a burglar, then realised it was a very large buck. walked up to the window and watched him. he was laying about four feet from the wall with the t.v., and twisting his head this way and that, as the t.v. sounds changed/coments fr the humans. Big fellow seemed to really enjoy it. he stayed there till show was over.

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