Living Among Us

Living in a very rugged rural land you learn very quickly that you are seldom alone. In Southern Humboldt County you will often find far more wild life then people. And some of the people may look a little wild themselves. We are lucky to have a 80 acre homestead, although most of it is unusable because of the steep terrain and thick forest. My closest neighbor is almost a mile away. We are fortunate in our neighbors. Here in SoHum you hear the stories of the weed crazed Bulgarians or Mexican Cartel starting land wars with the people living closest. Not so in our case. At least not yet. In case of emergency or seeing something out of the norm the people living on our quiet little mountain are quick to call each other and keep each other safe. Usually those calls are fire related. Lately they are Mountain Lion related. It started innocently enough with a "Have you seen my house cat" call. Then another and another. Over the summer and fall months there have been close to 20 house cats go missing. 1 dog has been attacked. So many of us have set up game cameras to try to catch the predator in action. We now have so many pictures we are almost certain we are dealing with more then one cat. At times when you are alone in the forest it feels like there is a pride of lions just out of view watching you. We have stopped letting our kids free range. We have fenced in our pigs and chickens. We are lucky to have two very good guard dogs that keep it out of our yard but other neighbors have not been so lucky. And now we start the debate on how to handle this situation. As a mother my first instinct is to protect my family and hunt the thing. But the Native American in me screams that this was their land before ours and it has more right to kill me then I it. Relocation has never entered my mind though. Why would I exile it to become someone elses problem? So for now we are being cautious and sticking close to home. Never leaving the house without a cell phone and my trusty .380.