“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” becomes lions and coyotes and bears, oh my! A friend sent a short reel of a bear cub, maybe a year old, ambling across her in-laws’ old place in the direction of a canyon that divides the land. We live on the other side. In the hills. Our place sits in a narrow valley, divided by a mostly dry creek, a ponderosa pine ridge facing a rockier rim rock on our eastern side. The afore-mentioned canyon collapes less hilly terrain, while plains north of us blanket into Montana’s eastern prairies and wheat fields.

We spot few bears here, though. If one is seen, we will likely be told, either as anecdote or warning. The video shows this scrapper actually climbing over a barbed-wire fence and tumbling down the other side, unhurt. And yes, he, or she, looked like a teddy bear, cuddly and squishy. At a distance.

Our son has set up game cameras on the property and regularly informs us of an interesting siting. Twice, a large coyote has been “caught.” The same one, I believe. We hear their feeding frenzies regularly in winter. The dens are above and behind our home against the wall-rock. Where I used to hike regularly. Not so much now, due to a proclivity for turning ankles, even with walking sticks. Once or twice a year I will venture into our hinterlands, just to stay connected.

Mountain lions roam the area, but they won’t share the exact locale as coyotes. My husband and I once watched a cougar burst out of the tree line into our front field, the ropy tail gyrating in a circle, as though to give her more momentum. I sometimes fantasize or imagine gazing up into a ponderosa and seeing a big cat languidly spread out on a limb, bright eyes staring down at me, long tail flicking back and forth. Imagination is the writer’s tool and magic power, but it will conjure fearsome situations. . . .

We have fewer wild turkeys, as they are just too wise to stick around. Fewer rabbits this summer too. Jeff erected the rabbit fencing in the garden anyway. No green beans two years in a row is not acceptable. Strange, to fret less about lions, coyotes, and bears than rabbits. A lesson hides in there somewhere. Raccoons make their merry laugh or call from the tree branch. “Silly humans,” they say.