"...seen that big cat?"

…seems to be the question of the moment from anyone who lives on the north side of Silver City or anyone who talks to anyone who lives on the north side of Silver City. The big cat of interest is a large male mountain lion! So really a “BIG” cat, not just a big tomcat.

It seems that a male mountain lion going about 250 lbs and some years of age has come down out of the forest into the suburbs of Silver. We were first alerted to his presence in our general neighborhood by our property manager, who also lives up on this side and about 2-3 miles closer to the edge of the forest. She and another agent were talking about this animal making a meal of a small goat out where she is. She was telling us that her neighbor? …husband? …I didn’t get a fix on the relationship but some guy she knows well got home from work and got out of the car… and froze. There was the mountain lion on his (their?) property; it stopped its progress and turned to look at him. And it just stood and looked at him for a couple of minutes, before turning and continuing on its way. That behavior made the officials to whom he reported the sighting more nervous than just the sighting itself. These animals are generally wary and cautious around humans, despite their reputation as the only large predator that will purposefully and with intent, stalk and attack humans. That this animal didn’t hurry off, sidle away or in any way behave with caution alerted the animal-control folks that something was wrong. No one knew whether this sighting was pre- or post-prandial, that is pre-goat or post-goat – but the goat was taken on the same day. Updates in the story-mill have this lion as older and suffering from some serious infection or other problem on a front paw, which explains why the animal has come to the suburbs where the hunting is easier; goats, after all, being much easier to catch for dinner than quicker wild prey.

Animal-control folks are apparently hunting the animal, but I haven’t seen anything in the local paper that would reassure the neighborhood that it’s safe to let the cat out at night – and would be housecats, of course.

Meantime, I’ve noticed that my imagination is creating sightings of the mountain lion every time I step out with Nutmeg: yesterday, it was a cat that I saw cross the street at a distance, and I wondered what kind of cat it was. This morning, I saw the buff-colored back end of something big moving quietly through the arroyo beside our house and hurried to the window to see what it was. It was the back end of a deer moving into the bushes, which then reminded me that the deer seem to have become scarce of late. I wonder what story-mill they listen to, that lets them know to herd up and stay out of sight.

Our friend Skee fell and broke her wrist or lower arm a couple of weeks ago, on a Friday I believe it was. She went to the emergency room of the medical center/hospital located here in Silver City. They put a temporary cast on the arm, and told her she’d have to wait until Wednesday because that was "Cast Day." I capitalize Cast Day because that, as the story was related to us, was how the ER personnel referred to the day of the week that regular hard casts were applied to broken bones.

Hmmm…Skee and we wondered what would happen to someone who had multiple compound breaks or whatever that might be much more serious than her broken wrist. Does everyone, or I should say, every break have to wait for Cast Day on Wednesday? Sure enough, the following Wednesday, she went in and was "cast"ed. To put Cast Day in proper perspective, the Gila Regional Medical Center is, as the name implies, the regional hospital serving this county and some large parts of neighboring counties and communities. To get to something larger, you’d need to go to Las Cruces, Tucson or El Paso. Maybe there just aren’t that many broken bones here? Or maybe people are just tougher out west?

Who knows, but if I’m ever to fall and suffer an injury that requires a cast, let it, please Lord, be on a Tuesday night.

And as long as I’m on the subject of "boo-boos," last Sunday when we were tromping around that piece of land, I stumbled twice onto the same agave cactus (how I managed that isn’t worth repeating). Each time I felt a scratch on my leg (same leg both times). If you’ve never gotten up close and personal, as they used to say in sports reporting, with an agave, they have long, strong and very pointy spines or needles in rows along the edges of the leaves. So I checked my leg to see whether the spine had broken off and was stuck in my skin or my jeans leg. When I didn’t find an embedded spine and only saw a minor-looking scratch I didn’t worry about it – until a day or so later, when I found angry red and very sore scratches, one on either side of my leg just above my ankle. These will take awhile to heal and are yet another good reminder of watching where you’re walking around here. The closest anyone should want to get to an agave is a glass of tequila.

Hope Spring is warming your bones and making you lean into the sun! ss