Check out my progress on Into the Wild
This summer shall forever be remembered as the summer of wildlife confrontation. As you may recall, earlier in the summer I’ve encountered some slithering creatures, not to mention some disgruntled birds, and a dehydrated rat. As of this morning, I can also add “coyote” to my list of animal acquaintances.
I was just entering the home stretch of my run, when I saw a pair of pointy ears up ahead. My first thought was, “Oh, how nice! A deer!” Wrong. As I got closer, I realized that I was not dealing with Bambi. Instead, I found this guy staring at me:
Um, not exactly Wile E. Coyote. These guys have been hanging around my neighborhood for years. In fact, I remember several instances in high school when we students were prohibited from playing on the field outside due to coyotes “circling for food.”
Anyway, upon realizing the true identity of the creature staring at me, I sprinted home. Was I scared? Let’s just say my heart rate monitor read 190 BPM when I returned. Eek!
Have you ever come face-to-face with a wild animal? What did you do?
Once my fear-induced queasiness subsided, I did manage to eat a few things…
I always find that when I am preparing to leave home for an extended period of time, I turn to comfort food. While to some that means macaroni & cheese or pancakes, to me it means scrambled tofu.
Add this to my list of pet peeves: over-sized sweet potatoes. For a single gal such as myself, heifer tubers are not exactly practical. Fortunately I discovered bagged “petite sweet potatoes” in the produce department the other day. I put one to good use today at lunch with my Sweet Potato Black Bean Salad with Ginger Peanut Dressing. (I substituted pineapple for the mango).
I was in a pizza kind of mood for dinner. I topped it with one of my all-time favorite ingredients, chickpeas. Is it still considered a pizza if there’s no cheese? Pizza or not, it was delicious.
Alright, I am off to watch Plain Jane. Later, lovelies!
Filed under: Meals
Caroline Yoder, dietitian-to-be and all-around foodie.
can i tell you i JUST turned on plain jane after i read this! i have no idea what it’s about but it looks amaze hahaha i’m hooked officially
Ack! Little girls around here were getting attacked by coyotes this summer; glad you made it back okay.
The closest I’ve ever come to encountering wildlife was when an opossum broke into our house and made up camp in our kitchen! (And this is in NYC)
I’ve also had that pizza conversation with friends a few times…I think it’s the sauce (any type of sauce) on bread that makes it a pizza, but hey, whatever you want…
ahh wild animals (aside from deer) are scary. but kind of thrilling, at the same time haha
hope you have a great night
love, becca
http://fromheretothereinpurple.blogspot.com
A pizza needs CHEESE
Haha.
I once encountered a dog that chased me for a few miles. Does that count?
the “pizza” looks good! hehe it’s a chick peasa!
yum! that pizza looks gooooood! i love making pizza on pitas
i’d have been scared!!! I’ve seen a lot of wild creatures when I was living close to campus… but not as scary as this one.
holy crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love that you know your HR from the monitor too. hilarious. i would have shat my pants for sure.
Ahh I would have been so scared!! I don’t know if I would have sprinted or walked slowly past it- since they always say not to run if you come face to face with a bear since they’ll chase after you, ya know? But yeah, running was probably the smartest thing lol.
I hate oversized sweet potatoes, too. I usually have to end up splitting them in half and storing the rest for later.
Coming into contact with a hedgehog was more than enough for me..i’ve STILL not recovered, and it was about 3 years ago!!!!!
Ahhh!!! OMG! i think I would have freaked out! Haha what a contrast to my recent post, which was about the serenity of deers
OMG, I would’ve freaked if I came across a coyote on my run….I mean, afterall, I got scared of a random dog LOL.
I agree that pizza has to have cheese too!
I would have totally freaked out! I have encountered a lot of snakes, but thats about it. That Sweet Potato Black Bean Salad with Ginger Peanut Dressing looks amazing. I might need to make this tomorrow night> I was going to do stuffed sweet potatoes, but I like the idea of this better
First of all your eats all look delish (like usual!)
Now on to the scary creature part. My friend was biking in NJ when he came across a COUGAR. It had somehow escaped from the zoo and wandered across my friend’s path. Needless to say, my friend biked faster than he ever had in his life that day. The cougar didn’t even try to chase him thankfully otherwise this would probably be a much sadder story lol
I know I always hear that if you see a coyote you’re supposed to make loud noises and it’ll scare them away but I think I’d be scared myself and would just run! I saw a bear once when I was playing outside in my neighborhood when I was little. It was the talk of the block for days!
That’s scary! A lot of the coyote populations where I live in New England have been displaying pack tendencies, not unlike wolves. I ran across a pack earlier in the summer out in the woods but was thankfully on my bike and hightailed it in the opposite direction. Coyotes are naturally secretive, so if it happens again, ask your local animal control officer if there have been any recent reported attacks!
Your lunchtime salad is so lovely! Sweet taters + black beans = classic combo.
In my world, a pizza needs cheese. Sorry. If I’m gonna eat pizza, I want me some ooey gooey cheese action. Mmm, cheese.
We’ve had coyotes in our yard before, and bears on our street. I’ve actually run into a bear on the trail while walking, but he was more interested in getting into the farmer’s blueberry field than bothering me. We also have regular run ins with raccoons, squirrels, and all number of birds. Oh, and deer from time to time
You’d think I lived in the forest or something!