The Coyote Trap

I believe Miku is the most wonderful five year old granddaughter any "Baba" could have. I am sure Yoko would say the very same thing - only in Japanese of course...watching Miku play in her fort must be a generational creation by a wizard child! I know I have never told you my first and only venture into the construction business.

Our summer vacations were filled with many different creative projects.......One was the coyote trap. Yes - I know you may not believe it but at one time your mother - Baba Jo aka Jo or Mary Jo or Olive Oil or Madusa Joe, with the help of her brothers, Uncle John, Uncle Dan set about to build a "coyote trap. To understand this picture fully you would have to be about 5years old standing on the hillside above the slough? swamp? moat? water at the foot of the east side of the hill at the mission. There would be very little foliage or trees, shrubs and no green growth to cover the floor of the flats. As far as you could see there were only a few little trees, a few bushes, lots of sand and a few coyotes. The trees and growing specimens were visible at all times - the coyotes only in the early morning hours. Sometimes the momma coyote would be there with her pups - and they would all be rolling around - biting at each other - doing little yips and growls - which on a clear morning you could hear the sounds easily as you sat watching.

I had a weakness for little things - puppies, kittens, coyotes....and I talked John and Dan into helping me build a coyote trap. I am not sure who the project architect was - but since I am writing this story and I think that player in this story is important I am going to say it was me! We collected the scrap lumber from any number of lumber piles around the place and since 2x4's seemed to be the most abundant that is what we started to assemble. Now this coyote trap soon - very soon - became a coyote mansion - this was huge - or at least in the eyes and reach of a five year old... We hammered and lined up all of those 2x4's and soon realized the trap was a little more heavy than we had anticipated. The engineer of the project (self appointed Mary Jo again) decided the trap was going to have to stay where we were building because no way was Grandpa White going to let us use his tractor to pull the trap out onto the flat land via the swamp/moat/slough HOWEVER we would have to entice the coyotes to come up off the flats, swim through the swamp/moat/slough up the hillside and get into the trap. (This project is easily into the third week by now - with daily assembly!)

I am thinking all of you are wondering about this time what all of this has to do with Miku's fort? Stay tuned - don't get bored just yet...Thinking if we did catch a coyote pup or two coyote pups - they might want to look out the trap so at some time we got a hand saw and cut through the back wall of our monstrous 2x4x8' trap a nice little window. Somewhere along the line we hung a little curtain over the window and put a little shelf on the wall. In retrospect I think the shelf was actually a board not quite level or symmetrical with the other walls and probably jutted out making a very nice ledge or shelf for any coyote pup. Before long the project was beginning to lose site of its mission statement "To trap and keep a coyote pup" and the carpenter builders (now down to one person - want to guess who?)had decided that the mansion was too fine of a structure to use as a trap for stinkin old coyotes - instead LET'S MAKE IT A PLAYHOUSE - AFTER ALL IT HAD A CURTAIN OVER THE WINDOW! DON'T FORGET THE SHELF! The architectural dream failed... and in the days afterward - I think it had to be years afterward the coyote trap had quite a few tenants as house guests...you only had to be shorter than four feet tall or a good squatter and you could spend all day in the coyote trap.

I remember many days laying in the trap looking out the window. We even became innovative and learned if several of us put some big boards underneath it we could lift it and eventually "roll" the coyote trap to any spot we wanted. I have often thought someone else copied our design and put wheels on it with a motor and now we see all of these coyote traps driving down the freeway every single day. Now you can see why I think Miku is a direct descendant of Baba Jo - I certainly would never let a coyote go into Miku's fort would you?