Maternity Clothes & Coyote Chase!

Corinne is now in the middle of her second trimester with Rocket, and as I mentioned last time clothes have started to become a problem. While it is easy to buy a wetsuit, snowboarding clothes or biking gear in Hood River, finding a place to buy maternity clothes is virtually impossible. Donna and her friend Pam came down to visit recently, bringing with them stacks of maternity clothing options for Corinne to try on. After about an hour-long fashion show, Corinne had selected a dozen or so outfits - including some pants, which have traditionally been difficult items - to fill out her closets for the next few months. Hurray!

The weather was lovely that weekend, and Max spent a good portion of time outside. On Saturday late afternoon, Max was outside and we were all in the Great Room when Corinne noticed an animal outside, fairly close to the house. Her first assumption was that it was a deer, but upon second look she realized what it was and yelled "Coyote!". He was walking from north to south towards the house when he seemed to see something along the side of the house and changed his pace to intercept it. Before Corinne had yelled "where's Max?" I was already opening the front door, getting ready to run outside and grab a scalping tool from the front steps. As I opened the door, I saw Max come racing around the corner on the same side of the house and head straight in the front door!

Corinne continued to watch the coyote from inside; once Max had made it inside, apparently the coyote retraced his steps along the side of the house, sniffing the ground as he went, then eventually head off into the woods to the east. The whole event happened so quickly that we didn't get any photos.

We can't be sure, but we're fairly convinced that the coyote was chasing Max. I guess we have a pretty good idea how he got up that tree now. We kept Max inside for the next few days, just to be on the safe side.

- Mike (& Corinne)