The Old Blog in the Desert

You never think to ask what comes after survival, and why would you? It was the job, the destination, and the goal.

It’s the first thing and the last thing you think about when things go sideways. You grip it with both hands, teeth clenched, holding on like you’re riding a greased pig through a thunderstorm, and if you’re lucky, you come out the other side a little wetter, a little bruised, but still on your feet.

What nobody tells you is that once you survive—once the storm passes, the threat moves on, or the doctor says you’re clear—you still have to figure out what to do next.

Nobody claps, and there are no parades. It’s just another quiet Wednesday and a pile of laundry.

I remember when I broke my back for a second time. I thought it was just a backache, the same one I had for the previous 20 years. So, I drank a shot of whiskey and lay on the couch watching reruns of “The Rockford Files.”

By the next morning, I couldn’t stand upright, and I was speaking in tongues—mostly curse words and prayers. My wife rushed me to the hospital.

They couldn’t do much for me unless I wanted to go under the knife and get metal rods inserted.

That was a nope, so they gave me pain meds and a muscle relaxant. I felt like I’d been hit by a semi when I woke up, but I was alive.

My family came to visit. I got cards with flowers on ‘em, and one from my Aunt Barbara that had a cartoon kidney saying, “I’m glad you didn’t croak!”—which, anatomically, didn’t make sense, but it’s the thought that counts.

Then the visitors stopped coming, the flowers wilted, and they sent me home with a paper bag full of pills and a warning not to lift anything heavier than a tennis shoe. And that’s it.

I sat in my recliner, marveling at how survival doesn’t come with instructions for what’s next. No one tells you that brushing your teeth becomes a philosophical exercise.

There’s a strange stillness to surviving. A silence that creeps with all the questions you didn’t have time to ask before, like now what?

It turns out, after your survival, you still need to take out the trash, feed the dogs, and return library books. Then people start expecting you to act normal again, like the whole “nearly being paralyzed” thing was just a hiccup, not a life-altering thunderclap that left you rearranging your thoughts.

But slowly—real slowly—you do begin to act normal again. You laugh at old jokes, crave pancakes at midnight, and go for walks and realize the trees are still out there doing their tree things, indifferent to your brush with mortality.

And that, I suppose, is the secret. Survival ain’t the end.

It’s the door you crawl through on your knees into a messy, wonderful, ordinary life. The kind where your neighbor still complains about your lawn, and the cat vomits on the rug, and someone leaves a pie on your porch just because.

After survival comes living, and if you’re lucky, you get to do the dishes standing at the kitchen sink while the coffee brews and the world goes on turning like it always has, and with you still in it.

I was standing in line at the post office the other day, which is where I seem to overhear the finest bits of accidental philosophy. That day’s prize came from a fella two folks ahead of me in line.

He was on the phone, loudly complaining about how “this country’s gone to hell” and how “nothing works anymore.” Judging by the fact that he was holding an Amazon return in one hand and a Starbucks cup in the other, I figured the apocalypse hadn’t quite finished the job.

Don’t get me wrong—I’ve done my fair share of grumbling. I’ve cussed out potholes, taxes, and every political ad that ever dared interrupt my westerns. But it’s always felt to me that complaining about your country while still enjoying all its perks is a bit like a teenager stomping around the house yelling “I hate it here!”—while still eating homemade lasagna, enjoying air conditioning, and using the Wi-Fi to post said complaints.

I said something like that to my son. He was about nineteen and opposed to optimism at the time.

“You don’t get it,” he said, rolling his eyes with such force I swear I heard them click. “You grew up in a different time.”

“Yes,” I replied, “a time when you had to get up to change the TV channel, and we only had three to choose from.”

That didn’t impress him much.

The truth is, this country isn’t perfect. It never has been.

We’ve had fights, failings, and frictions from the very beginning. But we’ve also had front porches, fireworks, and folks who bring casseroles when your life falls apart, and I figure that still counts for something.

Back when I was younger and louder, I remember mouthing off about America in front of my granddad. He was a man of few words and suspenders that looked like they’d seen some battles.

He looked at me and said, “Boy, this country gives you the right to say whatever you want. It doesn’t mean you’re always right, just that you’re allowed to be wrong out loud.”

He paused then, stirred his coffee, and added, “But try saying the same thing somewhere else, and they might not just argue with you—they might shoot you.”

That stuck.

Sometimes I think we confuse inconvenience with oppression. The internet lags for three seconds, and we act like we’re in the wilderness.

Someone disagrees with us online, and suddenly we’re victims of a grand conspiracy. But I’ve seen real hardship, and let me tell you—it doesn’t look like a slightly overcooked latte or a TSA line that moves too slow.

I still gripe about gas prices. But I also know I live in a place where I can write my thoughts, cast a vote, start a business, or take a nap under a tree without asking permission.

So yes, we fuss. We complain.

That’s part of being American, but let’s not forget that even when this country is getting overrun by teenagers slamming doors, it’s still our home. And despite all the noise, it’s a mighty good one.

Especially if there’s pie.

I don’t recall where I first heard it—maybe from old Mrs. Keating, who lived across the street and claimed she could read the weather in her corns—but she said, quite seriously, “Never look a chicken in the eye.”

Naturally, that stuck with me the way odd little sayings often do.

At the time, I was a boy spending the summer months running around all over the neighborhood, unsupervised. Seeing I was not indisposed, Mr. Champion hired me to do some chores around his backyard.

For a while, Mr. Champion kept a ragtag flock of chickens that tolerated him because he had the feed bucket. That, and he talked to them like they were poker buddies.

“Never look a chicken in the eye,” I repeated to myself one morning, shovel in hand, staring down the business end of a Rhode Island Red hen who’d taken offense to my presence in the coop. She stood there, puffed up like a Baptist preacher on tithing Sunday, eyeing me like she knew where I slept.

Now I’ve looked many creatures in the eye—dogs, cats, one very judgmental llama at the Sequoia petting zoo—but there’s something uniquely unsettling about the gaze of a chicken. It’s like they know too much.

Like they’ve been watching and taking notes. And this one? She was taking names.

At some point between thinking it and doing it, I forgot Mrs. Keating’s warning, and I stared right back.

That bird and I locked eyes, and the challenge was issued and accepted. I don’t remember what happened next exactly, just that there was a sudden flutter of wings, a squawk that might’ve been in Latin, and me flat on my back in the dirt with the chicken standing triumphant on my chest.

Mr. Champion stood nearby, sipping his coffee like this was Tuesday’s regular programming. “She warned ya,” he said, not clarifying whether he meant the chicken or Mrs. Keating.

From that day on, I made it a point to avoid eye contact with poultry. You might think that’s silly, and perhaps it is.

But I’ve never been tackled by a chicken since. I find if I keep my head down, toss the feed, and say “Morning, ladies” like I’m addressing royalty, I get by just fine.

That same summer, I also learned to watch out for roosters, never stand directly behind a horse with indigestion, and that if a barn cat brings you a gift, it’s best to act thankful—even if it’s missing a few essential parts.

But the chicken thing—that stuck with me longest. Because life has a way of reminding you not to mess with those who peck beneath their dignity.

I told this story once at a potluck, and some fellow laughed so hard he spilled peach cobbler all down his shirt. He said I was full of it, and chickens were harmless.

Last I heard, he was sprinting through a farm supply store parking lot, being pursued by a particularly aggressive Plymouth Rock named Gertrude. His wife told me.

So take it from me, passed down from Mrs. Keating to Mr. Champion to a boy who learned the hard way–never look a chicken in the eye. There are things in this world you can challenge—mountains, tax returns, maybe even your mother-in-law—but never chickens?

Chickens see straight through to your soul. And if they don’t like what they find, well, you’d best run faster than a Plymouth Rock with a grudge.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it over and over as long as someone’s willing to listen—or pretend to–learn to use AI before it learns to use you. But ever since I admitted I’ve been fiddling around with the stuff—just harmless dabbling, really—folks have acted like I kicked their dog or started speaking in tongues at the grocery store.

I don’t mean everyone, of course. Some of my friends are too polite to say what they’re thinking, which I appreciate.

Others, though, seem to have dropped off the face of the Earth. I’ll send a story their way—same warm tone, same crooked humor, same number of spelling errors—and hear nothing back.

Crickets. Not even a “nice try.”

Makes a fellow wonder if they’re upset with me or just scared.

I get it, sort of. AI’s new-ish, and folks fear what they don’t understand. It’s like when calculators first came out and teachers said, “You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket!”

Well, turns out we’d have the whole Library of Congress in there too, along with our grocery list, dating history, step count, and about 4,000 blurry photos of the dog.

Still, there’s something funny about the outrage. I recall when folks first found out their smartphones were listening in on them.

There was a brief storm of righteous indignation. People were ready to throw their phones in the river—or at least threaten to on Facebook.

“I don’t want the government spying on me!” they said, while scrolling through conspiracy videos on YouTube—owned by Google—on their Android phones—also owned by Google—while telling Alexa to dim the lights.

Then Edward Snowden, pale and serious, showed up spilling the beans on how the government was recording our keystrokes and listening to our calls. People swore they’d never be part of such nonsense.

But here we are—years later—arguing with strangers on smart devices, sharing our blood pressure data with apps, and letting a robot vacuum learn the layout of our homes. Voluntarily.

And yet, some folks are suspicious of me using AI. Not to deceive, not to replace, or shape their thoughts. I’ve always thought of AI like a workshop full of tools—sure, one of them might be a chainsaw, but most days I’m just reaching for a chisel and a good lamp.

The truth is, the stories still come from me. The warm memories, the stubborn opinions, the jokes that only land half the time—those are all mine.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is, we’ve already given so much of ourselves to the machines—we might as well get a little something back. Besides, if the robots are watching, maybe they’ll learn how to be a little more human.

Lord knows some of us could use a refresher course.

It was a good day on the farm; honestly, that means I only cursed once and nothing fell on me. That’s what passes for success out here, especially when helping a friend who’s under the weather.

Now, for months, I’ve been eyeing that old gate like it owed me money. Every time I passed through it, which was often, I’d mutter something about needing to widen it.

The thing was narrow enough to make a steer think twice, and with age, it had taken on the attitude of a mule—stubborn, sagging, and prone to complaining whenever I asked it to move. Well, today I finally got around to doing the job.

Got the gate enlarged and the fence tightened. There’s something mighty satisfying about pulling wire taut and hearing that low hum like a guitar string when you pluck it. Makes a fellow feel like he’s got some control over the world, even if it’s only a short stretch of pasture.

Once the gate got done and the fence was singing, I figured I’d check on the babies—by which I mean the lambs, not some unexpected chapter in my life. They were all tucked into the shade, looking as innocent and clueless as a group of toddlers who just pulled the stuffing out of the couch and are waiting to see what happens next.

The sheep pen had turned into a botanical experiment. Weeds tall enough to register to vote had sprouted in every corner, and it looked like they were planning a coup. So I went to work, pulling and yanking and tossing green invaders over the fence like a bouncer at a particularly unruly garden party.

Now here’s the thing: it was 90 degrees on the thermometer, but the humidity had other plans. That sort of thick, wet heat that makes your clothes stick and your thoughts melt.

The weather service reported that the “feels like” temperature was 100 degrees, but I found that to be generous. I’m pretty sure my brain was stewing in its juices.

After thirty minutes of pulling weeds, I was sweating worse than a pig. And I know that’s just a saying, but for once it was true—I looked over at the pigs, and those creatures had already claimed the pond.

They were all laid out like retirees at a Florida resort, just floating and grunting softly with the kind of peace you only earn when you’ve given up on doing anything useful. Meanwhile, I’m standing in the sun like a wilted gladiolus, wondering why humans haven’t evolved enough to grow mud coats.

So I did the only sensible thing. I dropped the gloves and retreated to the house in search of anything cold. I don’t remember exactly the name of the beer I guzzled—I just opened the fridge and pointed my face at it like a dog catching wind out the car window.

That’s farm life. You sweat, you swear a little, and you find joy in the sound of a fence wire singing in the sun, even if it ain’t your place.

I’ve sat down at the computer today for the first time since Monday. The chair feels as if it’s forgotten the shape of me. The screen blinks patiently, waiting for me to remember why I ever sat down in the first place.

Over the years, I’ve written several unpublished columns with Honey walking through, her pit bull smile, tail wagging, ears perked, always present. I thought about changing them, and have decided no, that it would be like editing out the warmth of a good memory.

Honey was part of the rhythm, part of the pauses and glances that made those tales come alive. Letting her stay just as she was, alive on the page, is a quiet kind of grace, my way of saying, you mattered here.

And she did. She still does.

Aside from that, it’s been a strange stretch of days, the kind where time doesn’t quite hold still, but it also doesn’t move forward like it ought to. If I’m honest, I feel like I’ve been walking through wet cement in bedroom slippers—still trying to get from here to there, but dragging a weight behind me that I didn’t know I’d picked up.

Honey, our blue-nose, gray Pit Bull left us on Wednesday morning. She was the size of a small bale of hay and heavier than a cement block, but somehow, her absence has left the house feeling like an empty barn after all the horses have gone.

It’s quiet now—too quiet–not just in sound, but in feeling.

I catch myself pausing at the refrigerator door, waiting to hear that telltale “ticka-tacka-tick” of her tappy-toes on the hardwood. It was automatic—open the fridge, and she’d come trotting in like she owned the joint, ready to collect her payment in the form of an ice cube.

And don’t think for a moment she didn’t train me on that trick. That was her thing, the ice cubes. It didn’t matter how small or how hot the day was, she’d gallop in with all the seriousness of a dog on a mission.

She passed on during what was already a tender time. My 65th birthday landed on Sunday. Sixty-five, which ought to feel like something grand, but instead arrived like a letter addressed to “Resident”—a little impersonal, maybe even unwelcome.

Before I could make peace with that number, I found out late the following morning that my stepsister, Amanda’s, husband had passed suddenly, a heart attack stealing him away in the dark. We were still stunned come Tuesday, and then the vet confirmed what we were afraid of—Honey’s heart was failing.

Right-sided congestive heart failure. That was the name for it. And yet, all I could think was, how could a heart so big ever fail?

Wednesday morning, 11:05, the vet administered the final kindness. A minute later, she was gone, and I found myself holding more tears than a dog.

You’d be amazed at how quiet that moment can be when a life slips out of a room. You’d think there’d be a noise, something sharp or soft—but no, just stillness.

Since then, Buddy—our other pup—has been looking for her. He checks the corners of rooms like a guard on patrol, stopping just long enough to listen.

But the ice cube brigade is down a soldier, and he knows it. He’s gone off his food and curled into himself on the couch, or stretched out on my bed like maybe that’s where her scent still lingers.

He’s grieving in his way, and I let him.

The heart has a way of holding sounds and smells in it, keeping them even after they’re gone. So now and then, I think I hear her coming. I don’t—at least not in the way I’d like—but some things echo longer than logic allows.

Grief, I’m learning yet again, is not always loud. Sometimes, it’s the silence that hurts the most.

Beneath the aging balconies of C Street, where the Comstock’s old grandeur now serves only the tourists, something darker has taken root—an underworld masquerading as entertainment, fueled by saffron, sex, and sacrilege.

It started with unusual whispers. Reports of late-night “ghost tours” extending well past 2 a.m., of abandoned buildings glowing with candlelight, and of a sudden uptick in sexually transmitted infections—syphilis and gonorrhea foremost among them—across three counties serviced by the Quad-Counties Health Division.

What tied the symptoms together, health workers quietly suggested, was an unusually high concentration of cases in and around town. What tied the people together was harder to say—until one former saloon girl turned bartender told me, “They don’t believe in disease. Just pleasure. And if you’re married, so what? They’ll swap partners like playing cards.”

Months of off-the-record interviews led me to a decaying structure tucked behind the C Street façades. From a nearby alley, I watched as cloaked figures slipped through a side entrance.

At the door, a hooded sentry challenged me. I gave the passphrase—learned from a frightened man who’d begged me not to write his name down.

Inside, masked sentinels questioned me at intervals, but bits of ritual knowledge got me through. Then I entered the room: a candlelit chamber centered on a black-draped altar, above which hung a crucifix so grotesquely altered it turned my stomach.

Several men and women gathered—some nude, others gowned, all altered by wine and pills. Several couples openly engaged in lewd acts while others cheered them on. I recognized more than one face behind the masks—shopkeepers, a councilman, even a school secretary.

The priest arrived clad in crimson robes, flanked by three acolytes with swinging censers. The liturgy he offered was a vile reversal of the Holy Mass—every gesture an insult, every prayer a mockery. As he spat on the bread and invoked Satan, a man, unfamiliar to me, stood abruptly.

“Stop this farce!” he thundered.

The room froze.

“Who are you to interrupt the sacrifice?” the priest barked.

“I’m a seeker of truth,” the man replied, stepping forward. “And I know exactly what this is—a fraud. Your entire ritual depends on Christ’s doctrine. You can’t create your own, so you steal and pervert His.”

The crowd murmured, some confused, others furious.

“If Satan were your true god,” the man continued, “you wouldn’t need to mock Christ. But you do—because without Him, this whole farce collapses.”

The priest clenched his fists. A few worshippers shouted. But none moved to stop him as he turned and walked out the same door he entered.

I left shortly after, heart pounding. Outside, the Nevada wind cut sharply, and the sky seemed darker than it had before.

I submitted this story to my editor the next morning, but it got declined without explanation. A week later, I lost my job with the paper.

They said I strayed from objectivity, but this wasn’t about my belief. It was about truth, and the truth is this: under the guise of tourism and ghost stories, a cult of moral rot has taken hold in this town, trading in sacred blasphemy, body fluids, and a spiritual hunger gone wrong.

Whether anyone listens or not, I don’t care, but I recorded it because someone has to.

There’s a memory I carry that I never quite know where to set down. Doesn’t seem right to tuck it away on the same shelf with the funny stories—like the time I got stuck in a folding lawn chair at a family reunion—or even the thoughtful ones, like remembering my dad’s boots lined up by the back door.

No, this one’s quieter, heavier, like an old coat you can’t bear to throw away even though the pockets are full of things you can’t explain.

Some years ago, I dated a young woman for three, maybe four weeks. Not long enough to know her well, but long enough to see the hurt behind her eyes. You know the kind—it looks like she’s smiling at you, but her soul’s standing off to the side, arms crossed, not quite ready to join in.

She was charming in that way people are when they’re trying hard to get liked. Quick to laugh. Told stories with her hands.

We went on a couple of dinner dates, took walks along Beach Front Drive, and she once tried to cook for me but forgot to turn the oven on. I didn’t mind. We sat on her back porch with cold take-out and watched the streetlight flicker while her neighbor’s dog barked at absolutely nothing.

I started to catch her in little lies—things that didn’t quite line up. She told me she worked mornings at a vet clinic, but her phone would ring at 8 a.m. with someone asking if she still wanted that “job interview.”

Another time, she claimed she had a niece in the hospital, but later called the same niece her goddaughter. I didn’t say much at first.

I told myself maybe I was misremembering, or she was. But I knew better.

One evening, after a strange story about a broken-down car that mysteriously un-broke itself overnight, I asked her straight out if she had a drug problem. She denied it, of course.

Said she didn’t even take aspirin. But when I found a used syringe cap in the glove box of her car, my gut told me everything I didn’t want to know.

I ended things the next day.

About ten days later, a mutual acquaintance told me she’d died of an overdose. Just like that. Gone.

I sat with that news for a long while. Tried to picture the woman’s face, but even that started slipping away like a fogged-up mirror.

It’s a strange thing to grieve someone you barely knew, someone who kept you at arm’s length even while lying in your arms. It’s even stranger that I can’t remember her name.

I hate that part most of all.

But I remember her laugh, the way it bounced off the wall and ceiling. I remember her telling me that clouds look sad on Sundays.

I think of her sometimes when I see folks on the street corners, holding signs, looking past the cars and into some other world. I wonder who remembers their names.

Life teaches you in quiet, uncomfortable ways. We can’t save everyone.

Sometimes, we can’t even hold on to their names. But we can remember they mattered.

At least, they did to someone—even if only for a little while.

I was about twelve years old the first time I heard my Uncle Luke say, “Life is like a door—never trust a cow, because the sun can’t swim.”

It was one of those sayings that leaves you with a polite smile and the uncomfortable sense that you’ve just been handed wisdom in a language no longer spoken. Luke was full of those kinds of sayings. He’d toss them out mid-conversation like horseshoes at a family barbecue—wild, rusty, and occasionally landing close enough to make you think.

That particular piece of advice came during a morning of fence-mending on his old spread near the Mas River. I’d managed to pinch my thumb in the wire stretcher and was hopping around on one foot, using language that my mother would’ve washed out of me with a bar of Lava soap.

Uncle just leaned on the fence post, spat into the dirt, and offered that peculiar line as if it were gospel. Naturally, I stopped hopping and stared at him like he’d just quoted Shakespeare through a kazoo.

“Excuse me?” I said, thumb throbbing and ego bruised.

“Think about it,” he replied, and then walked off to the truck to get more staples, leaving me to ponder the greater mysteries of livestock, doors, and aquatic celestial bodies.

Years later, I’ve come to believe that what Uncle Luke lacked in clarity, he made up for in poetic nonsense. But still, I’ve tried to apply that phrase to life’s odd moments, like a compass made from spaghetti noodles—wobbly, but weirdly comforting.

Take the “never trust a cow” part. That checks out.

Cows are majestic in their way, but they’ll also give you a blank stare as they back into a half-finished gate, take out three planks, and then look surprised as if you did it. I’ve been led astray by more than one pair of big brown eyes and a flicking tail.

You learn quickly not to assign logic where cud is involved.

And “the sun can’t swim?” Well, that’s poetic truth if I’ve ever heard it.

The sun might rise and shine and bake the road until your tires weep, but if you drop it in a pool, it’s just a fancy spark before everything goes dark. Which I think might’ve been his way of saying even the mighty have their limits.

As for the door part—“life is like a door”—I’ve come to like that. Doors open, they close, some squeak, while others stick.

Some folks barge through, and others knock politely. A few never open at all unless you push harder than you’re comfortable with.

I don’t know if any of this is what Uncle Luke meant. I suspect he just enjoyed watching me squint at the sky and try to figure it out. But I’ll tell you what, that phrase has stuck with me longer than most textbook wisdom ever did.

So now, when someone’s having a rough day, I’ll sit down beside them, pat their shoulder, and say, “You know, life’s like a door. Never trust a cow, because the sun can’t swim.”

And they’ll look at me sideways, same as I did years ago. Which is how I know I’m getting old, and possibly wise.

But mostly old.

Last winter, when the wind blew so sharp it could shave your eyebrows clean off, I found myself helping my buddy Jim round up his small herd of cattle—twenty-five cows and one bull who thought he was tougher than the weather.

Now, I’ve always said yes to Jim’s invitations, mostly because he’s the kind of guy who still believes in paying you back in stories, strong coffee, and whatever food his missus is fixin’ on the stove. So I bundled up in every article of clothing I owned, which meant I looked less like a cowboy and more like a poorly wrapped scarecrow, and headed out to help him move his herd from one frozen pasture to another.

We were out in the high country, where the frost doesn’t just nip at your nose—it bites and chews. The cows didn’t seem to mind too much. They moved slowly, mostly, like they knew there was no sense in rushing when you’ve got a thick hide and a mouthful of cud.

It was during one of our brief water breaks—standing near a sun-starved trough, boots frozen to the ground—that I saw him.

A coyote. Scrawny but determined.

He came trotting up like he didn’t see us at all or, more likely, didn’t care. We weren’t his concern. Thirst was.

He eyed the shallow trough, its surface crusted over with a thick pane of ice. Without hesitation, he started bouncing—front legs stiff, back legs springing like he was on a trampoline.

Up and down he went, landing smack in the middle of the ice. It cracked a little, but wouldn’t give. He paused, looked around, then gave it another go—bounce, bounce, crack!—until finally, with a sharp shatter, he broke through.

He lowered his head and drank fast, like he was afraid the water might disappear if he didn’t hurry. Then suddenly, he stopped.

I mean, he stopped—eyes wide like dinner plates, head tilted, whole body stiff. If you’ve ever had a Slurpee too fast on a hot day, you already know what happened next.

He tensed up, staggered a little, and then flopped over like someone had unplugged him. Just thunk—legs in the air, tail twitching.

Jim and I couldn’t help it—we both burst out laughing. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a wild animal suffer the same fate as a teenager with a Big Gulp.

After a few seconds, the coyote blinked, gave his head a mighty shake, and stood up. He looked around, probably hoping nobody saw.

I swear, if embarrassment could turn fur red, that critter would’ve been glowing. The youngster slunk off, a little wiser, maybe, or at least a little colder.

Jim wiped his eyes with his glove and said, “Well, that’s one way to learn patience.”

I nodded and replied, “Bet he’ll sip next time.”

We finished moving the herd, my toes were completely numb, and my cheeks burned from laughter. But that image of a brain-frozen coyote toppling over has stayed with me, a reminder that even in the wild, nature’s got a sense of humor—and sometimes, you gotta laugh, even if you’re freezing while doing it.