predators

On My Knees, Preying

/ Diane Henders / 28 Comments

The past week was unusually hot. I like summer, but 38°C/100°F is a little too warm for me. So I’ve been getting up at 6:00 AM to pick veggies and water the garden. It’s gorgeous outside at that time: The sun is just coming up, the air is cool and fresh, and the only sounds are the birds and the trickle of the creek.

Coincidentally, there was a recent news article about how the bear population is exploding on Vancouver Island. Bears are now regularly seen in residential areas where there’s no record of a bear being spotted in the past 40 years. So big hungry critters were in the back of my mind when I hauled myself out of bed a few days ago and opened all the windows.

I was sitting at the breakfast table when a blood-curdling cry froze me to my chair. It was close. Somewhere in our yard.

After a moment of breathless immobility, I relaxed. The ravens were flapping around as usual. They have a huge range of vocalizations, so I figured one of them must have gotten creative. I carried on with my breakfast.

But only for another minute or two, until the terrible cry came again, even louder. The ravens fled. And my primitive lizard-brain screamed, “COUGAR!”

A couple of years ago, a big cougar came right up on our neighbours’ deck; so we definitely have cougars in the area. I scurried over to the internet and looked up ‘cougar vocalizations’. Sure enough, cougars make a lot of different noises; and some of them sounded just like what I’d heard.

No way was I going to kneel out in the garden like prey when there was a big predator around. But where was it? I hurried from window to window, peering out. Nothing. Then I went through our attached garage to look north.

As I eased the door open and cautiously stuck my head out, a Great Blue Heron took off from our pond with an irritable squawk.

Yep, it turns out that cougar cries and close-range heron squawks sound remarkably similar.

So I did my garden duties after all, and my week turned out fine. I hope yours does, too — may all your scary cougars turn out to be harmless herons!

Book 17 update: The draft is FINISHED, woohoo! The title will be Live And Let Spy. I’m editing madly, and I hope to hand it off to my first beta reader next week. Stay tuned for cover art and a release date, coming soon!

It Fell From The Sky

/ Diane Henders / 34 Comments

Several months ago, before there was snow on the ground (yes, we had snow; stop laughing), I looked out the front window one morning and saw a rabbit’s foot. Clearly not a lucky one, since it had been recently detached from the rabbit.

I’ve never been squeamish, but I have to admit that being confronted by a dismembered limb first thing in the morning was a bit… disconcerting. (Although probably not as disconcerting as it was for the victim.)

I grew up on a farm, so this wasn’t the first time I’d discovered evidence of some predator’s successful hunt; but it was unique in that there were no other signs of carnage. No tufts of fur flung wide, no other remains, nothing. That was what weirded me out: The fact that the leg had apparently dropped from the clear blue sky.

A moment’s thought reminded me that we now live in eagle habitat, so after that it wasn’t too hard to guess who ate the rest of the rabbit. Still, it was a bit disturbing.

But life went on (for us; not the rabbit), and a couple of weeks later we poured a concrete pad in front of our house, effectively interring the rabbit remains. All was forgotten.

Until two weeks ago, when I looked out the front window and saw this:

Hubby and I had each taken a walk and followed different paths several yards apart. Neither of us dropped or threw anything. So… what’s that divot in the snow, at least six feet away from the nearest footprints?

I ventured over with some reluctance to check it out, but there were no grisly remains. So either we have a tiny volcanic vent in front of our house, or else the eagle flew over again and dropped something a little more *ahem* liquid in that spot.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that the snow is gone, and spring is on its way. Our crocuses are blooming (at least the ones that managed to escape our hungry squirrels), and we are the proud proprietors of a penis garden. It’s more work than you might think: We have to be vigilant about turning it every day to make sure the sprouting schlongs don’t develop a permanent curvature.

I didn’t want to post anything pornographic, so instead of the original flock of phalluses, here’s the end result:

The amaryllis garden in its (mostly) post-porn phase

What’s popped up in your world this week?

Book 16 progress: I’m on Chapter 42 and Aydan has finally discovered who’s trying to kill her; but now a sniper isn’t the worst of her problems. Things are getting complicated…