Rearview Mirror

Not-So-Lazy Sunday

By the time I am up and out of the house, my way is blocked by none other than Ferdinand. Eventually, with some coaxing from my ATV, Ferdinand moseys onward and upward. 

After a nice big lunch courtesy of Mom, lil' South Potrero looks pretty full.

So full, in fact, that she inspired me to doodle in the logbook.

There's a WHAT in the front yard?!

Five-thirty a.m. phone calls are never a good thing. That's a bad news hour. So when my phone started ringing, too loudly, "Friendly Ghost"--the name of my ringtone--shattering the stillness of my room and waking me with a start, I was sure someone was dead. Or at least horribly maimed. I tried frantically to unzip my sleeping bag, but the zipper was caught on the fabric. The phone kept ringing. I threw my sleeping-bagged legs across the bed and down to the floor with a loud thunk, and potato sack race-style hopped over to the other side of the room. I missed the call. Looking at the caller ID, I saw that it was Katie, who (my brain was starting to wake up now) was out doing a.m. obs. Oh no. Did something happen to her? I am about to call her back when I hear footsteps pounding through the house. My pulse races. She knocks on the door and I open it, expecting that something is seriously wrong. 

" There's a buffalo down by the thaw box! "

" A what? " Oh I heard her. But...seriously?

" A buffalo! " She's a little out of breath.

" Are you serious?! "

Relieved and all at once excited, I don't even bother with real clothes. I throw on my hiking boots, and grab my camera, and dash out to the car with her. It's chilly outside, and she has the heat on in the car. A bowl of oatmeal sits on the seat, steaming. We drive, down the road from the house, toward the marshy stand of trees at the edge of the property. The little local bobcat slinks across the field in the dawn darkness. As we pull past the thick trees, around the thaw box--

There he is. Off the side of the road. A big bull. Munching on the grass. Unconcerned by our presence. We don't leave the car, but I roll down the window, snapping rapid-fire on my Canon SLR.  He's just so...huge. And woolly.  He simply stares at us. 

He becomes Ferdinand, to me at least :  named for the bull in the children's story who rejects a life of bullfighting and just wants to spend his days among the flowers.

 

Katie drops me off back on the road up to the house, and heads off for her somewhat delayed morning obs. I see the bobcat has curled up to nap in the grass. I get within six or seven feet of him before he opens his eyes, gives me a long and slightly annoyed look, and saunters off for the woods. 

I may have been planning on sleeping in this morning, but if you're going to get woken up at 5:30 a.m., it better be for a bison in your front yard.