Lost and Found y Tres Coyotes

"Saaaaay, the ethics laws of your position of employment don't preclude you from shameless product promotion do they?"

No, and though I'm afraid to ask, why?

"Well, i've got this invention you see. It'll revolutionize life for us coyotes."

It has something to do with quail catching doesn't it?

"You got it."

Yeah, i'm not helping you promote that. 

It had taken coyote a while to get around to that topic at hand. Even if he had been direct and to the point, though, it would not have prompted me to provide any other answer. That said, our local Rainbird rep did bring a pretty cool Buff (and a pretty cool looking one at that. Maybe if more looked like this, people wouldn't complain about wearing them?) for each of us in the office yesterday, and this evening was the first opportunity to give it a wear.

I had spotted coyote an hour and a half earlier, sitting, up the road a way. I thought I could outsmart him by making a quick turn onto a side path to ride around. Success, I believed, as I continued my ride, temporarily undisturbed...

and then there it was. I had arrived home, following a gravel ride, a few weeks ago and had only then noticed that one of my bar end plugs was missing. Damn, I thought with little conviction. I had been waiting for an opportunity to install some new locking plugs, bought a year and a half ago, and here it was. Fast forward to this evening; I had stopped at a gate in order to push it open a little wider before going through. As I pivoted my bike around I glanced down at my feet where something orange caught my eye, and there is was, just waiting for me to come along and find it - how many weeks later now...

and then there he was, and not alone. Coyote, the one I knew, along with two of his fellow scavengers. The three were in the middle of the road discussing... well, discussing quail catching as it turned out, though I didn't know it at the time. They scattered as I came rushing down the hill, taking them by surprise - two down the road, one directly into the brush. 

"Hey," coyote barked. "Where'd you go earlier?"

I thought you didn't see me, thought I could outsmart you.

Coyote grinned, his lips pulled back and white teeth showing. Coyote's two compatriots - Wiley and Wile E. Coyote - trotted back and I resigned myself to sitting for a while to listen to them ramble. "Nice mask you got there," he said.

street side tractor and toy car parking

 you almost never see three coyotes together, but they were right there