Got a call Friday evening left message, Al call Mikes house the female voice said. I called about 6:00 got the female who’s voice I didn’t recognize on the phone.

Al I have heard about your butterscotch flap jacks I bought a bag of chips today while at the grocery store. Can you be at Mikes at 5:00 AM, I will have the door unlocked and the lights on for you.

I tell her OK see you at 5:00 then.


I arrived and true to her word the outside yard lite was on as was the hall lite when I stepped in the door. Carol gives me the silence sign and motioned me in the kitchen said Mike is still sleeping so we should shut the door so we don’t wake him. I have tea ready for you, made it when I saw your lites turn in the drive. We set at the kitchen table and drink tea and coffee as she starts the Chatty Kathy with me. Tells me that she has taken a 60 day personal leave from work but if the virus hits the county hard over whelming the staff to call and she will come to work. Put her house on the market Wednesday, hope she can find a place she likes quickly so she can have some thing ready to live in by fall.


I ask what she will do if her house sells right away and you can’t have any thing ready by fall.
She said well I really like Mike a lot but not ready to live with him even though he has asked me to and also offered to let me live here if that happens, my house sells and not ready for fall move into a new place.
I will put every thing in storage, rent a place if I can get a short term lease OR move home with my dad. Dad is still alive and active for his age 87, has a person come in and keep house for him and fix a few meals for him.


Getting to about 5:45 so I say I should start making the flap jacks. Mix the flour and milk grease the griddle and start pouring batter on, Carol is making bacon in a skillet and making a big pot of coffee too. At 6:15 Carol tells me to yell at Mike to get out of bed, I said you can’t go in and wake him? So she went in and I heard her say Mike time to get up, he says I’m hungry, kitchen smells SO GOOD.


As we set eating breakfast Mike says he didn’t have time to put his new rifle together before he went to work Friday night so will take the 244 again.

I tell him that Anderson called me yesterday afternoon, said the coyotes were singing at his place again. Maybe a memorial service for the ones we had taken out. We should go there and see if we can take any more out. Told him there was no need for him to come out with the gator if he hears shooting. The social distance thing, I supposed we should abide by.

He said but you guys are still doing things together, Ya but we are close friends if we start to feel ill we will not do stuff together.


After we ate Carol and I made sandwiches with supplies she had picked up in the grocery store while Mike did dishes. I admire him not liking dirty dishes in the sink. Killed a lot of my dating women after I saw their kitchen sink.


Carol takes Mikes truck keys. Mike doesn’t fight her or give me the bossy woman look either. Smart man didn’t get to bed till about 2:30AM and has a chance to take it easy.Carol goes and jumps on I 69 headed west as instructed to the M13 turn off north thru Lennon to M21 west.

I tell her where to turn off 21 to the south and Mister Andersons drive way, Point to the tool shed and say park there, Is 7:05 AM.


We dress in our camo and head out. Wind out of the North is right in our back but there are other bales where we will have a cross wind.

Sure is cold, truck read out said 25F not to bad but radio guy said wind chill is 17.

We get set up and had discussed the sounds we would use here on the way. Settled on Mikes challenge and if we got a bunch of answers I would turn my ever alluring female in heat loose to see it we got any takers.

Got good return barks for the challenge, 3 more challenges and they seemed to be moving our way. I started the female in heat for 4 reps, and waited. About 5 minutes Mike did the challenge and again sounded closer. I start the female in heat for 5 minutes this time and I see some bounding thru the brush looking at the decoys. There is 4 of them staying in a pretty tight group. Finally they are in the field Mikes zone so I watch him I am to take the tail Carol # 3

And mike will go for # 2 who ever should try for the first one to see if we could gather them all.


Mike waits till they are well out in the open giving us a better chance to get the 4th one. Mike drops the hammer we fire I rack and swing on the last coyote while hitting the ki yi sound. I see it stop but can’t get on it but Carol had, her second double. Girl is getting good At racking the bolt and getting the second round in and fire accrete.


We wait for nearly 50 minutes but no more coyotes are showing. A good scan into the woods didn’t produce any more either so we go and gather the gear. Coyotes had decent fur yet 3 males and a female on the younger side by their teeth.

Carol tells us to go ahead to the truck with our coyotes so we leave.

She knows we are not going to any restaurants so needs do do other things.


We go back east cross over M13 for a mile then a gravel road north. We are going to a hobby farm of a old work mate of mine and Johns. He and John were very fast friends and visited each other often till Johns death.


Dennis’s farm is 120 Acres has 25 head of beef cattle and two horses He had two boys that are grown and gone now. The woods is on the small side about 10 to 12 acres but not mature yet and has a lot of brush.

All of the farm is pasture or hay fields. Dennis also leases hay fields from the surrounding area to cut and bale.


We walk back across a pasture getting the eye from the mixed Angus stock till we reach a brushy fence line about 80 yards from the woods. Here the wind is in our face and is good we have our faces covered, the wind is raw. The sun is up and bright too.

It has been months since any one has hunted here so we expect to see some action. Unfourtenly a full 45 minutes and nothing is answering the challenge sound, nothing appears to see about the distressed pig sound.


Back at the truck we see Beth step out on the porch and gives a friendly wave and yells hello. At another time she would have invited us in for coffee and possible some thing sweet she baked.


We continue to head north about 5 miles then east a mile to a sheep farm of Tom Worden, big place kids own adjoining farms and they run close to 500 heard.

There is a nice big woods here the sheep are not allowed to pasture in the woods till after they have been sheared. We walk across a hay field them a small pasture to set up by a stone pile woods about 125 yards away. Here we get a couple answers to the challenge sound, they are moving also. I start the hot female going calling to them to hurry, took about 15 minutes for a pair of coyotes show up Carols zone and close to Mikes she signs he should take the lead. She drops the hammer and that little belch of flame comes from the barrel but no lift. She turns after the shot and a coyote down and gives me this big sly cat grin.

45 Minutes later we go pack and look at the coyotes a male and female. Both still have decent fur, the 12 deer we saw as we were walking across the hay field did show signs of shedding though.

Al

Go another mile north turn west a couple miles and back north a bit.
We arrive at the hobby beef farm of Al Yates. These small beef operations keep from 20 to 50 head of cattle and depend on people seeing adds in the news paper to buy beef from them starting at a quarter. Most people Like Kare and I buy a half.
Once a whole steer has been bought most times it is taken to a butcher shop to be butchered and packaged the way the farmers customers want.

We have a brush covered wet land here. About 5 acres was a sloth at one time possible but didn’t stay wet enough to stop brush to grow in it.
There is a small woods on the other side also. We walked across a frozen corn stubble to a fence row with dead grass in it.
We set the decoys and callers out about 50 yards from the edge.

Start the challenge sound got a couple answers but no movement of the answers on successive challenges. I start the piglet in distress sound going for a bit. The sounds are never rans continues for the full time we are on a set for a 30 minute set the sound may go 12 to 15 minutes total. Volume isn’t real high to start as we are only calling a few hundred yards and coyotes like your pet dog had good ears. The volume gets raised a bit higher near the end. We always wait the last 15 minutes silent and scan the area with our binocs to see if we have any hang ups setting in side the brush to scare when we leave.

We are nearing the next place which took nearly 20 minutes to get to the sheep operation of Bob Miller. All a sudden I am feeling tingling and start sweating profusely, I know that sign but have never felt it come on this fast. Dig in my gear bag for my meter and test strips, prick the finger and dip the strip in the drop of blood. I am now shaking pretty bad as I look at the meter I am a 45 I have never been this low before. Carol is concerned but I tell her I will be fine they should go do the set with out me. I chew down 4 Glucose tabs and start digging around for my home made trail mix.
My mix is chocolate MM’s, Reeses peanut butter pieces, pretzel sticks the skinny ones, cashew nuts and peanuts and a bunch of combo stuffed cheese snacks.

I watch Carol and Mike walking off across a pasture till they are out of sight behind the tool shed. I have stopped sweating still feeling a slight tingle and have some shakes. I get out of the truck and dig in my gear bag for a new clean dry shirt, and a pair of jeans & socks. Remove my boots strip out of my jeans and put on new dry ones, a new pair of socks, then a new clean dry shirt.
I am now dry and feeling fine, by the time they return a check of my blood gives me a reading of 132. I see Carol and Mike rounding the tool shed dragging two packages. First thing Carol does is grab my wrist and feels my forehead, says with relief I am well.

Mike said I had lost my job of being a sexy female as the real sexy female did a great job with the caller.

They had only got one return bark to the challenge Carol works the female in heat sounds and the two coyotes showed up both got one, a male and a female with well worn teeth.

Carol says time we eat looking at me. We drive to a near by state road side park to eat.
Carol keeps asking me how I am feeling. She knows about diabetics but has never had one scare her like I had. It even scared me, lowest I have ever been before was 51and I was in the hospital er waiting for exrays and stitches.I felt it coming on and told the nurse she said are you sure then started looking for a meter. Gave me hard candy as that was all they could find a the time. A bit later she had found a glass of OJ for me.

I do know what is happening to my body as I have been crashing a lot before lunch of late at home. Normally I have been doing some manual labor like cutting fire wood and loading in the tractor loaders bucket. Or splitting some large stuff down to stove wood size.
I have talked with Crystal about it we had adjusted my insulin injections. That has resulted in some overly high readings in the 283 range. So have went back to the same dosage I had started with.
She tells me I can’t do a daily adjustment for what activity I have planed for the day. Just stop after a bit and have a snack of some thing with sugar or carbs.


Al

After we finished eating our lunch ( meal away from home LUNCH.) we continued north to another hobby, horse farm. They board horses and rent them for riding the near by trails for rails system. But no one is doing that today at all every body is in isolation it seems.

We have deep drains here all draining toward the Cass River they are brush covered and many facing east to get morning sun and west for the afternoon sun like now. But north wind is still cold. Is kind of hard to hunt area because the ditches are so deep and brushy, a coyote can work along the edge just below the lip and at the last minute be out of the ditch and on the decoy in no time. Way we hunt the area is to set the decoys well back of the ditch where we are expecting the coyotes to appear and be ready.

The challenge sound got a couple answers from both ways down the main ditch, the next few had returns closer.


I turn the hot female loose asking for any big fellas to come and have his way with her. Took a full 15 minutes for a coyote to show up peek over the edge looking for that hot female, took in the decoys and started putting the sneak on it. Carols zone she is looking to Mike though so he dropped the hammer. I enjoy that small belch of fire leave the barrel and that look in her eye as she looks about and grins.

She has no sooner grined at us then the second one pops over the edge in front of Mike. I see his 244 do a little jump on the rest and he has a coyote down as well.

Girl has the eyes on fire all the way back to the truck but doesn’t break the rules got to give her credit for that.

Back at the truck she says I saw the dust puff when the bullet hit. No muzzle jump at all hard to believe.

Time to turn south there is no more of our farms in this area as most are flat Saginaw valley crop farms. Not doing any door knocking at his point to scare people either. We cross over I 75 turn south for 22 miles then east. We are back in the southern fringe of the Valley where the farms are smaller and soil not as rich.

A other hobby beef operation of the Benchly family. Farm is about 80 acres. This farm is all pasture for the 20 some odd head of mixed breed cattle and hay fields. Surrounding this farm is other farms that have started going back to nature brush trees and swamps.
Ideal for coyotes to hide in and raise cane with surrounding animals.


We make our way back to a stone pile about 70 yards from the back property line set the decoys out with the callers and Mike does a challenge call. No answers, he tries one more time still no answer. I start the piglet in distress sound going after about 15 minutes Mike does the pack party sound go. That did the trick there was a challenge bark which Mike answered with a challenge. That continued for a short time I had shut the pig off to listen to the coyote and Mike. Took about 5 minutes and a coyote pop up from under the fence in the open my zone but I wait a short bit nothing else showed so I let the swift speak.
I have another coyote.

We get back to the truck and decided we will do one more set for the day. We go to the popular Christmas tree farm.

We park and as we are about to head back Sean steps out and waves and says see you guys are in quarantine with people. Laugh and say sure thing, the way it is these days, people still have to work.


We get back to where the trails thru the farm make that V part way past the + and set up. Do the Challenge and get no returns again. I let loose the piglet in distress again as it goes, play it again softly. A full 45 minutes later we have seen nothing so go and gather the gear.

It is 4:30 AM we decide time to get back to Mikes and go to work.
We make it back to Mikes at 5:15, Call Kare and say will be home late, am going to work skinning coyotes with Mike. Think the two of us can make a quicker job of it.

She is fine with it as I do it often, knows not to hold supper for me.


Message on Mikes machine for Carol to call Dean. So Mike and I go out and get started hang two and start the combing then skinned them hung another pair. We are on the second pair when Carol comes out with a gleam in her eye. Have gotten to know that gleam as excitement. Dean had called about a place she might like to look at.


She had gotten directions and a meet time for a 1/2 hour latter.

I told her that she and Mike could go look at it and I would stay here skin more and flesh out some of the hides.


She got in my face and said right now you are one of my dearest friends and I respect your option so your going or I will pass going too.


Guess I have been adopted by a daughter.


Remaining coyotes go in the cooler, a room that stays pretty cool even in the summer.


Not going into a great lot of details. 40 acres half wooded, a 30x40 national chain pole barn, Well, power on the property and a septic system but no house just a foundation & basement where a Modular house had sat.

Woods has marketable timber in it.

Bank owned property asking 3.5k per acre. Not a bad price per acre here. Four miles away we paid 6K per acre. But the going rate for listings is 9K.

Al