I have led an interesting life….nothing fantastic but it has been interesting to me…

Lately a new chapter has opened….in retrospect it probably began a while ago, but I did not know it.

for quite some time now I find the horses to ocassionally be agitated and distracted at the evening feeding….It is only every now and again but there are some evenings when Star Baby does not want to come into the stable or the barn to eat and she will take a bite and then turn to look outside…..

I have never seen the cause for her agitation….We have bears and we have coyotes but I have never seen either on the place.

About a week ago my wife called to me in what for her was a very quiet voice.  I was upstairs and barely heard her…..Wondering what the devil was going on I went to the top of the stairs to find her with the front door open and the dogs at her feet wanting to go out and she was just staring out into the darkness.  We do have a security light in the yard so it is not real dark but it is not light either….

I asked he what she was doing.  She said there is something out there.   I scurried down the stairs as fast an arthritic old man can and looked over her sholder and asked what and where.  She said I don’t know what it is but it is bigger than the dogs.  Our Aussie Apache is about knee high to me and weighs a bit over fifty pounds….Dee Dee the pound puppy is a bit taller and longer but weighs less.  She said it is a lot bigger than the dogs….

Still not seeing anything, I asked her where…..She said, “In the field beyond the cars.”

Beyond the cars is our small vegetable garden and beyond that is a paddock of poor grass that in my youth was more garden and now is a summer grazing paddock for the horses.  I stared and scanned and could not see a thing.  Figuring she was overreacting to a oppossum or coon or skunk, I grabbed up my big million candle power flashlight and hoped it was charged and slipped out the door. 

I flipped the switch and flooded the area in light and saw …..nothing…..I walked forward and scanned with the light…. still nothing…not even the usual rabbits that like to munch on the wheat and clover cover in my garden…

I continued to walk and scann with the light and suddenly about a hundred yards away in the open woods on the south side of my place the light reflected an eyeball….it was huge….and it just stared back at me…..It literally looked like I had illuminated an orange…..and it continued to just look back at me…..Funny how many thoughts run thru your mind at a time like that…..thoughts about what it could be….thoughts about what I should do….thoughts that whatever it is ….it is not afraid of me….for the life of me I could see no shape or form in the darkness….only that eyeball staring back at me…..this went on for thirty or forty seconds while I strained trying to see some shape or form as the cacaphony of thoughts raced through my head….

Suddenly it turned and was gone……where to, I still don’t know.

I shined the light to find the horses and they were alert but unpreturbed….I could not find the two yearling bulls but trying to find black bulls in the dark is a fairly futile persuit. No… it was not a bulls eye that I had illuminated…I have been lighing up cattle eyes all my life and this was no bulls eye…wrong color…..  And they could have been anyplace in a wide area.

I went back to the poorch and let the dogs out and tried to minimize it with Marie….If she thought it was something scary she would be shooting up the whole place….

So a week or so has gone by and last night I was roused from my sleep at about two thirty by one of the mini donks braying awfully….I grabbed the 44 mag from the bed table and dashed down the steps and grabbed the big light and stepped out….Scanned until I found the braying donkey….he was alone….I don’t know why as those donkeys are normally attached at the hip.  I continued to scan until I found the horses and the other donkey…Once I lit them up, Jonah saw them and was satisfied and began to make his way toward them….

I shined the light all about and saw nothing and the horses were unpreturbed so I figured everything was all right…..Still do not know why Jonah was alone in another lot away from the others unless something chased him….

I let the dogs out and Apache took the opportunity to relieve himself….Dee Dee would not go off the porch…..

went back in the house and went back to bed but sleep would not return,,,I was still tossing and turning when the alarm went off at 4:30.  Put the dogs out and hit the area with the light again and Jonah was back with the others and all apeared to be normal….

I expect this story to be continued….and you can expect me to be armed when I am walking around on my own property…..I don’t know if it is a bear or a lion or sasquatch….but none of em are welcome in my yard or my pasture….it was not a coyote….that eye was much too big to be a coyote….and no coyote is that brazen around a human.