The Silver Coyote's Pictures

Mistletoe
Annie and Joe getting in the spirit.
A Christmas gift commissioned by Aramis Dagaz
Illustration by Savannah. See her other works at her Deviant Art web site.
E-mail Savannah your comments at shatter_snow (at) yahoo.com

The Three Amigos!

We have yet to meet all in the same place, but at least I have managed to have the opportunity and honor to meet both Aramis and Tigermark face to face. I'm not sure who originally used the expression to describe us, but somefur did and it stuck, so Tiger and Aramis and I have become The Three Amigos. In case you don't know us, or haven't explored the rest of this site yet, Tiger and Aramis are both prolific authors and were both instrumental in helping me become an author of sorts myself. Tiger maintains his own web sites at The Tiger's Den, and Aramis (who used to maintain a site called Angry Erika) has an account at Deviant Art and maintains his own LiveJournal. Check 'em out! Tell 'em SC sent you!

Aramis came to visit us in March of 2005. In the course of our ramblings we wound up at the Seal Beach pier, where this image was taken at around 1615 hours on 10 March 2005.

Later that year, in the summertime, we happened upon the most delightful family of felines while traveling in the mountains of Colorado. For some reason they felt absolutely no discomfort about hanging out with an old canid and his crew, which was fortunate for all of us as we spent a full day together traveling back into history on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. For those of you who haven't figured it out, Tigermark is the fit, good looking one on the left. This image was taken around 0800 21 July 2005 near the town of Durango on the day we parted company.

We had tried to make connections in Colorado that summer with Aramis as well, but he was otherwise occupied at a vineyard (!) elsewhere in the state and Tigermark never had a chance to meet him that year. Aramis was on summer break from a demanding college career in the ROTC, leading to a commission in the United States Air Force. 2006 came and went without us being able to meet anywhere, and 2007 looked like it would go much the same way... until Aramis graduated.

Here we see Lieutenant Aramis Dagaz, USAF, and his sister Erica (of Angry Erica fame), on the occasion of his graduation and commission. I wish I'd have been there tro shake paws with him.

Shortly after that stuff began to happen quickly in Aramis' life, and he found his surroundings changing as his duty assignments came in. A happy side effect of this was the occasion where he and Tigermark finally came nose to nose, as it were.

Here we see the two eastern amigos at the Tiger's Den, 4 June 2007, before Aramis headed off to his duty station in Illinois. Tiger tells me that we can't call Aramis a kitty any more, that we need to start referring to him as a lion/cat. <grins> That's gonna take some time, I think. I don't care if he makes general, this ol' dog is always gonna see a kitty in that uniform.

Anyway, that's what's up with The Three Amigos. As time goes on there will be more adventures, I'm sure.

Story Related Art

My first ever story-related artwork. Cirrel drew this after reading the first four chapters of The B Team.
The crew of "The Bitch" from left to right Randy, Steve, Joe, and Slam.





An awesome and early Christmas gift from Tigermark, his take on Joe Latrans as he appears in The B Team.

Another gift from my talented feline friend depicting The Bitch misbehaving on approach to Knoxville in The Rematch.

Images Of Kin

Please note that if no credit is given for photographer or copyright holder it's simply because I don't know where the image came from or how I came to have a copy of it. No infringement of copyright is intended.

Red Foxes

The Red Fox (vulpes vulpes), photographed by Robert J. Stottlemeyer. International Stock Photo.

I'm a sucker for a good "mom" picture.

A very young red fox pup. Note the size of it's paws compared to the rest of it.

This little red fox pup is my daughter's favorite.

Image © National Geographic Society 2003

Coyotes

This little pup is already talking like an old paw. Photographed by Breck P. Kent.

The above five images were scanned from post cards I purchased. All cards are copyright © Impact Photographics, Pittsburg, California 94565

Another "mom" picture.

My father thought this guy epitomized "wily". Photograph by Jim Stroup, from a post card published by Peak Productions of Mammoth Lakes, California. My web research seems to indicate that Mr. Stroup is a photographer based in the Mammoth Lakes area, but I couldn't find a web page for him, and it appears that Peak Productions may be up for sale or may, in fact, already be out of business. I couldn't find a web page for them, either.

Not all of my kin are of the desert southwest. This coyote is quite at home in the winter cold of Yellowstone.

Wolves

Local Family

This little guy is our mascot up on the hill. Our plant is located on a ridge above the city of Yorba Linda in what used to be a rural area. Recently the machinations of man and brush fires have conspired to rob our buddy here and most of his kin of their range, and we've been seeing a lot of this little guy around our work areas. These pictures were taken 16 July 2003. Our friend has since filled out, no doubt the large populations of misplaced rabbits, squirrels, and road runners are contributing to that!

For the longest time our buddy was absent. We worried a lot about him, but apparently he was out making friends...

This and the following three images were taken at the Yorba Linda Plant property 3 August 2004. Three separate coyotes living the best way they can, despite man's obvious encroachment on their home. Looking young and fairly well fed, we were overjoyed to see them playing in the early morning light, as we had seen nary a one for quite some time.

All of these "Local Family" images were taken by my friend Bruce. The 2003 "mascot" pictures were taken with a Sony DSC-S85 digital camera. The 2004 pictures were taken with a Canon EOS10D digital camera body using using a Canon 28-135mm zoom lens. These images were edited for content, in the original raw images the coyotes occupied a very small percentage of the field of view. While appearing calm and at times indifferent around humans, these little guys none the less keep a good distance between themselves and the bipeds. Smart coyotes!

I took the following two images using my Fuji 2800 digital camera at about 1030 on 12 December 2004. The location is El Capitan Meadow on the floor of Yosemite Valley. My friend here is looking for a bit of late breakfast. He would stand motionless for a while, tilting his head occasionally as he stared at a particular patch of snow. He was listening for mice or squirrels, I suppose. We never did see what he was catching, but it was obvious that he was not going to leave that meadow hungry. He found himself a couple of snacks during the few minutes we decided to join him. Needless to say, we did not partake.

My friend was about thirty yards away from us at his closest. He would offer us the token glance now and then, but for the most part kept to himself and concentrated on finding his snacks.

Here's our friend in "search mode". He'd stand absolutely still like this for what seemed minutes on end, then he'd scrabble at the snow with a paw for a few seconds and... presto! Breakfast!

Stars of the Media