[ This weekend I’m transcribing masses of audiofile notes for future posts on Beta Culture, as well as working on some book-y stuff — I have a book in the works, working title “BraynDrops, the Freethought Bathroom Companion” — but unfortunately neglecting things here. I swear I’ll be back soon with some new stuff. Meanwhile, here’s a repost of a piece from Sept. 15, 2011. ]
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It was hot, the day the coyotes danced.
It was about 1990, and I was ranch-sitting for a friend in Bishop, California. The owner was up in the mountains all summer, but there were cattle at the ranch, and somebody needed to be there to look after them.
In this particular case, ranch-sitting was a minimalist job. The cattle were out in a pasture with plenty of water and grass, and cattle don’t need much more than that. Really, all I had to do was walk the pastures once a day and make sure nobody was sick or injured or dead.
The east side of the Sierra Nevada range is mostly “high desert” — not the rolling dunes of sand most people think of when they hear “desert,” but just really dry sagebrush country. The well-watered ranch, by contrast, was an oasis of shade trees and green grass, especially beautiful to someone like me who’d grown up in wet, green country. Continue reading “When Coyotes Danced (Repost)”
