What I saw on the way to work this morning.

My drive to work every morning is just more than 15 minutes (covering 13 miles.) I must confess that I wasn't too sad to leave the house this morning. The God of stink had struck again.

As I pull out of my house I am surrounded by a beautiful mixed pine and juniper forest. I drive one mile, hit the highway, and head out of the junipers into a rolling grassland. It was right at this point three years ago that I saw what I thought was a big coyote...I found out the next day that it had been a wolf from the reintroduction program. (A program that stirs quite the controversy around here. Imagine if they tried to reintroduce the eastern grey wolf into rural Virginia.)

I wiz past the entrance to the town of Tyrone about nine minutes from home and start climbing up the pass that leads to the mine where I work. Just up in front of me I see my manager in his car and then, perfectly framed in a stand of yellow grass I see a regal bobcat, standing shock still waiting for the traffic to pass. At work I asked my manager if he saw the cat and he didn't. It was a perfect setup and the cat knew he could hold still to remain less visible even though he was standing tall.

Last spring when my mother-in-law was visiting and again when the cousins were over on the Fourth of July (and sleeping on the tramp) we heard a cat screaming. It was very cool to clearly see one for the first time though. (I saw the screamer's tail end as it ran away when I went to investigate the noise.)

I love where we live.