After a long Friday workday, Marie and I decided to get away for the weekend. We hurried to pack her CRV and headed for our thirty-five acre parcel of paradise on South T Bar ranch. Three and a half hours later, we pulled into our makeshift driveway as the sun was setting behind Waugh mountain, skirting around prairie dog mounds and a fine crop of noxious but extremely healthy bull thistles in late summer bloom. I parked on a scrub oak and pinion knoll to be sure to get a panoramic view of our jack rabbit meadow first thing in the morning. We emptied the car, turned down the seats, set out the sleeping bags and snuggled into our folding camp chairs hoping to hear some coyotes before retiring.
Twilight on the ranch is beautiful. The air softens and the skyline turns into this black sculpted edge of mountain that surrounds and becomes you as the night arrives and the first of a million stars make their appearance to welcome the rising moon.
The night was cloudless and the moon was French vanilla ice cream. It cast shadows and the coyote family paid their respects; beginning their first yips right on queue, just off to the west and very close. They would hunt our creek bed tonight, our jack rabbit better be on alert! He was big and gray, a very wise and careful rabbit certain to find a hiding place, maybe deep in the Badgers old den.
We retired to the car to finish the evening, cozy in our sleeping bags and listening for the sporadic calls of the hunting coyotes. In the middle of the night we could hear them hunting the meadow and tried to get the binoculars on them but they were simply invisible running noises. Once awake we could hear large dogs barking, miles away, but persistently closer.
To reach South T Bar, the dirt road had an easement through a sheep rancher's property. It was a usual occurrence for his six or seven Pyrenees dogs to escort our car (I have their tooth marks imprinted on my bumper!) from our first appearance at the base of the hill, to our exit around a final bend, before they returned honorably to their porches. The loud woof barking must be coming from some of them.
The moon was bright and we could see two large white shapes far away down valley woofing with authority as they closed in on the coyotes, on duty 24x7 to protect their flock. We were in the middle of this show down, close enough to hear the air being forced from the coyote lungs as they ran nervously around us, not wanting to give up their hunting, yet seeing, hearing, and probably smelling the white shapes approaching, ever closer.
What a moment, sitting up alive with excitement at midnight, surrounded by the noises of invisible wild things and watching breathlessly as the two courageous white knights raced to keep the forces of darkness in check.
The two Pyrenees arrived, marked our car in the moonlight, then proudly departed with tails held high to continue their vigilance into the night. Marie and I just grinned to each other and settled back into our sleeping bags, hearing the loud woofs of the Pyrenees disappear behind a ridge and then surface again farther away ever on watch.
The next morning we made coffee, reminisced the nights excitement and decided how to spend the day. What would it be? Picking rocks on the driveway or whacking the thistle crop back into submission? It would be thistles. After about an hour of search and destroy, Marie said "Look!" and I did.
The two Pyrenees were coming up the meadow straight at us. Our only experience with these dogs was the drive through their territory and it was never a friendly encounter. So there was some reason for concern. Marie said, "Are they going to be mean?" I looked at them now about 50 yards away and one of their tails was wagging. I put down my shovel and extended my hand to let him sniff it and thankfully, they were incredible friends coming back to make amends after keeping us up all night. Break out the hot dogs!
Since they had been up all night, they were tired. We set out some water and they lapped it up and both laid down by the car waiting for lunch. These two dogs were amazingly beautiful. Both collared and tagged; Winni and Bear, probably the mated parents of the Pyrenees clan. Intelligent deep dark eyes and black noses with thick white coats. From that day forward, each time we would travel to camp the property, they would make the trip to visit us. They never forgot us and neither have we forgot them. To this day, Maries retirement dream is to raise Pyrenees puppies!