When you hear coyotes howl, do you ever wish you had a translator? I became especially curious a couple of summers ago when a pack of coyotes moved into the gully below my house, and as far as I could tell, started raising a family. The coyotes kicked up a chorus for almost any loud sound, including the roar of commercial jets flying over the neighborhood. That noisy summer is the subject of “Awake at night and listening to coyotes,” my latest essay in High Country News (titled “Overheard in Montana” in the print edition, which was published September 4, 2017). My thanks to researcher Brian R. Mitchell for answering my questions about coyote vocalizations.
I spent most of my twenties working for the National Park Service, and I lived in a wide variety of government housing, including several shabby but appealing old houses where the wild creatures outnumbered human inhabitants. Sometimes I wondered, lying awake at night, how many hearts beat inside those walls. With all that lovely national park habitat protected for their use, why did the animals need to live in my house? Or my office?
My latest essay in the Christian Science Monitor, “The indoor wilds at outdoor parks,” revisits my experiences with wild (non-human!) roommates and officemates in Rocky Mountain National Park. At the time, they were considered annoying but not dangerous. Attitudes changed dramatically when hantavirus came on the scene, and suddenly those cute, non-housebroken deer mice became a threat. When I moved on to Canyonlands National Park, I found that every effort had been made to seal off my double-wide from four-footed intruders. These efforts mostly worked (and later employees moved into rodent-free new housing). But somehow a packrat still managed to chew its way through the floor and drown itself in my toilet. I’m not even going to get started about my coworkers’ experiences with skunks and scorpions.
About the visitor center in the story . . . the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center was designed by Taliesin Associated Architects, Frank Lloyd Wright’s firm, after Wright’s death. Working there, I always thought the building was a bit of an oddball. But in my defense, I had previously worked out of a fort and a log cabin. I recently revisited the building while researching a children’s book I am writing about the park. I think I get it now, at least a little.
I’m still the family barber, but you never know what might happen when I pick up the scissors. My new essay in the Christian Science Monitor, about the risk of doing it yourself, is titled “Free haircuts—but at a cost.”
It can be tough to decide what risks are acceptable for your children, especially if you’ve had a chance to see what can go wrong in the mountains. For my take, see my essay published April 4, 2016 in High Country News, “Take a page from the mountain goats.” (In the print edition, see “Risk, goats, and kids in the mountains.”)
I’ve always loved dog stories, but not the ones like “Old Yeller” where the dog dies in the end. I promise that no dogs are harmed in my latest story, “Poetry Appreciation for Dogs,” which was just published in the Christian Science Monitor. The photo that accompanies the story is by Keri Petrilli, a friend of mine (and Scout’s).
My story from Big Sky Journal’s upcoming issue has just been made available online. Check out “Catching Bob” on Big Sky Journal’s website. (There was a little mix-up on the photo captions. The photo with the fly box was taken along the East Fork of the Bitterroot, the actual setting for the story. The rest were taken up Blodgett Canyon on a search for Bob’s relatives.)
My essay, “Basketball Mom,” was published last week in the online version of the Christian Science Monitor. It also appeared in the June 2 print edition.
Julie Lue 