A Coyote Story

 

A churchman called in the other night and our conversation ranged far and wide. He told me about his grandfather, wounded at the end of World War I and demobilized after the Armistice. On returning to the States he caught the train from New York (?) and found himself several days later in Valley Mills, Texas, late at night.

There was no one to pick him up so he decided to walk home, carrying his duffel, home being an earth floored house some 15 or more miles away. So off he went across country, and in the depth of the night became aware he was surrounded by coyotes, "They were all around him, he could hear them moving and he had his knife out. But he made it back to the earth floored house that was his home. Father, it wasn't that long ago."

No, it was not. Sometimes I take guests out to the fields and brush near my friend's range then, at dusk, we hunker down and I tell them to listen as the coyotes start to howl. What an eerie, unearthly sound. The wolf, they say, is their natural predator.

Cave Canem,

LSP

1918 or 2022?

 

What is this, a colorized shot of the Western Front in 1918?

No, gentle readers, it's Popasnaya 2022.

A strategic height in the Donbas salient, Chechen and DPR troops spent several weeks taking the town with the help of round the clock bombardment.

The Ukrainians had 8 years to fortify this position and did, turning it into a maze of bunkers, tunnels and trenches. You can imagine the ferocity of the fighting. Similar, perhaps, to Japanese positions in the Pacific but more industrial.

That we've come to this, in the 21st century, when we should be enjoying a "peace dividend" brought about by the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Warsaw Pact is appalling. Equally so are the calls for a hot war against Russia, a nuclear conflict which would destroy us and the planet. But what can I say, people who eagerly kill babies in the womb will do anything.

By way of a parting shot, humanitarian aid and war supplies are being sold in the markets of Odessa. No surprise there, more on this anon.

LSP