Laurie McClain:

Okay, I have now decided to begin a blog...  this first entry is also in my "news/journal" that I started on this website before there was such a thing as blogs... so here is my first (I hope of many) official blog entry:

Howdy!

I saw a bobcat in the wild for the first time in my life a couple of days ago, in the snow, in Nashville, TN.  Snow in Nashville is only slightly less unusual than my seeing a bobcat, since I can count on one hand the times it has actually snowed in Nashville since I moved here in '97, although it was snowing when I drove into town - with my friend Mark driving the gigantic rental truck following my tiny Toyota Tercel carrying me and my three disgruntled daughters - snowing all the way from Lincoln, Nebraska to Nashville... The “one-hand” disclaimer is that while snow has fallen from the sky to instantly melt a handful of times, or it has lightly dusted some surfaces to the point where one might say, "I think it might be snowing," or "What is that?” – the accumulation to the point of what I would call real snow is back to four or five times in 13 years.

So back to the bobcat - so graceful, so lovely against the snow covered ground. It was very small bobcat, just a little bigger than a house cat, which I mistook it for at first.  Then I saw the extra wide limbs with the leopard like prints and the dark fur pointing down from either side of its face. I was stopped at a light as he/she was attempting to cross HWY 100. The little cat seemed to be traffic savvy, cautiously looking around. As I was driving away, I saw it change its mind and go back into the woods it had emerged from.  Be safe little bobcat, it’s a dangerous world, where humans are the most dangerous animals…

peace and love,
Laurie