For a little while I have been thinking about writing a book about animals. This would not be your normal book literally about animals, but more along the lines of Aesop’s Fables and in a more casual manner like the Tell Me Why books that I had as a child. There would not be necessarily moral or ethical questions solved by the animals, but a fun look at why animals do what they do. For instance, the first story that I was thinking about would be titled ‘Owl Said Who”. The story would explain that all animals around the world can understand the native language of the area. Not only that they can understand each other. Owl like the stories title happens to say ‘who’ while ease dropping on some church ladies gossiping one Sunday morning after church. I don’t want to give away the rest of the story but you have the general idea of what might happen.
About six weeks ago my family and I had a phenomenal opportunity to join some of our dearest friends for an overnight camping trip along the California/Arizona/Mexico border. Late in the evening I ventured out of the tent with my cell phone star navigator site to marvel at the amount of stars I could see that night as well as the shooting stars. While standing, alone, just up the ridge from the camp I heard some burrows in the distance. That was not a surprise since I knew they were around, based on the waste, however I did not physically see them at all. It seems that they were near on a ridge to my left, and somewhere close on a ridge to my right a couple of coyotes made their presents known.
It was absolutely amazing to be in the moment, taking it in using all of my senses. I thought of a story that night that I could add to my fables idea. It would be something about the leaders of the burrows and the coyotes meeting for a fight. The coyote thinking that it could kill one of the burrows and feed the entire group, but the burrow surprises the coyote with its cunningness and ability to kick really hard. The West Side Story (without the love story) of the desert, but in this case the animals come to the understanding that they cannot beat each other, so they will taunt each other every night under the stars instead.