I don’t know why it should bother me, but, in spite of at least four reads by people I’ve never met, who took a second to tell me they liked what they read, my WordPress stats say  I got shut out here back to back days, after eking out a single view just before the game ended for the day two days ago.   Worse than snake eyes, two ones, this was two zeros.  The best throw of the dice, a fortune cookie once reminded me, is to throw them away.

We saw a young coyote today on Schoolhouse Road near Metler Road in a town near New Brunswick, NJ.  I did a slow U-turn so we could see the cool looking young animal, and just as we spotted him again he spotted a lizard or maybe a snake, dead in the gutter by the side of the road.   He picked it up, walked a few steps and began to eat it.  He watched Sekhnet roll down the window and take a few photos.  He took his lunch back a few steps, into the shade of a bush, and continued eating.   I thought he was a coyote from the first glance, but he was an immature one and we weren’t sure what he was until we looked for coyote images on the web.  Then there was no doubt.  I’ll try to get one of Sekhnet’s blurry Blackberry photos and put it up here.

“What was he doing all by himself?”  Sekhnet asked with concern.  For those of us who love animals, such questions will always be a concern.

I had a visit here today from a Canadian photographer and outdoorsman named Patrick, he was by the other day, liked another post.  I saw his wonderful photos of a recent hike he took through breathtaking costal landscape.  I thought to myself “damn, look at that eagle,” and “whoa, look at the attitude in that crab that wants to fight his friend!”  You can see his pictures here.   I remembered hikes I’d taken years ago, the newly sealed tent holding in the pouring rain in by Beaver Pond, NH en route to the Laurentides, sleeping tentless by Benson Pond in Yosemite waiting to meet a friend there who never showed up.  I remembered I didn’t mind at all not meeting him.

But I’m wondering, doesn’t Patrick’s visit count against my second straight shutout?  Or oneanna65, or Chelsea Brown 19?  And what about Matt George, who liked a short piece I just wrote and posted, and has a very cool photography website showcasing other people’s work.   I mean, WTF, WordPress, with these glaring snake eyes?