Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I woke up to the sound of rain.  It was 5:30am-ish.  I waited for it to die down some.  I left to go running at 9:13am.  It was nice out.  I decided to run up to McDowell.  That would be about 5.6 miles.  I crossed Brown Road and saw a coyote in the Floodway.

I watched it for a bit, and it ran around me.  I have that video on my story on Facebook.  This is the top of the Floodway, or rather, where the Floodway starts.  I could see water discharging through a pipe into the Floodway, so I went to the other side to investigate.  It hadn't been raining hard enough for that much water to be coming out.  I could see an irrigation standpipe about 20 feet away.  Sure enough, water was being pumped into the standpipe from a nearby well and then just discharging into the Floodway.  Weird.

I then crossed Greenfield and headed toward McKellips.  A man named Tory Adair (thank you, Strava) stopped me and told me there was a coyote watching us.  I saw it, but didn't take a picture because of how far away it was.  I crossed McKellips and ran by the orange grove.  I was looking in the grove in hopes of seeing more coyotes.  Sure enough, I spotted two together.  I took a picture and kept running.  I caught up to a guy walking his dog.  I asked him if he had seen the two coyotes in the grove.  He said he saw one that crossed the Canal, but did not see the other two. 

I kept running and then I saw a barricade half a mile before McDowell.  I guess I won't be going to McDowell today.  I stopped and took a picture to send to my friend Greg who works at RWCD.  He teased me about trespassing.  I turned around and watched for the coyotes again.  I spotted two on the other side of the Canal.  I stopped and watched for a bit, and I saw the third.  So the two I saw had joined the other one the other guy saw.

I was still texting my friend and showing him the pictures I had taken.  When I crossed McKellips again I saw a woman running toward me with an old Ragnar McDowell Trail shirt.  She waved and said, "Merry Christmas!"  I was in the middle of telling her that I have that same shirt when I recognized it was Amy Spencer from the ward.  I didn't tell her about the coyotes, though.  Then I started looking for the other coyote again.  I spotted it and took this picture.

So, I was able to get pictures of all 5 of them.  It was a nice morning for a run and I took my sweet time.  I saw my Strava friend Matt Bell and said good morning to him.  That was right after I had crossed Greenfield and that's when it started to rain.  It was a just a sprinkle actually, but a hard sprinkle.  I couldn't see any other coyotes after that.  I couldn't see much of anything after that.  But I made it home on instinct alone.  5 coyotes.  I think that's a world record.