Cluckin A Critter Farm, LLC: Sunday May 31st... What a Day!! We lost a Chicken and GOT A Fox......

This morning, Vicki and I jumped into the hospice gift shop project with both feet and in short order... had the rear wall cut, nailed and standing. We propped it so it couldn’t fall and was ready to start on an end wall when Stanley and Joyce pulled in looking for eggs. As we were talking, it started to rain hard enough that we quit and put all the tools and equipment away.

We had Christa and her half sister Joslin were here cleaning stalls and buildings, and when they finished, we decided to take them home and pick up another box of framing nails for the nail gun before GNH Lumber closed at 2:00 o’clock. We picked up the nails and went to P&L Deli in Westerlo for sandwiches and soda for lunch. After eating, I sat down on the couch, to allow the Motrin I’d taken (for my pustule psoriatic arthritis) to take effect, before going out to try to build an end wall. I had sat there for about five minutes before I heard Vick screaming for me to get the gun, because an animal had a chicken. I grabbed the shot gun I keep at the rear door and burst out into the back yard. Vicki said the animal she had seen, was behind a parked trailer in the yard, so I proceeded to the far side of the trailer, looking carefully around it and under it. I saw nothing, so started walking through the yard, looking for an animal. I saw a brown, moving thing out in the yard, which I thought was a chicken nesting on the ground, but on closer observation, found an almost dead hen. Suddenly, I saw a fox running from the barn or the woods between the road and the barn, carrying a black hen. I carefully watched his progress across the yard and I picked an opening in which to shoot where I would not hurt anything and wouldn’t be shooting toward the road. I shot a round at the fox, which instantly dropped the chicken it was carrying. It continued to run across the yard, so I picked another opening and shot, this time it looked as though I hit him pretty hard, but he disappeared out of my line of sight behind the house. I went around the corner of the house and found the fox lying dead at the corner of the yard, near the stone wall. We immediately went into recovery mode now, looking for injured or dead chickens... more than the one I'd already found. After looking around, we found only the one chicken we had previously came upon. The black hen the fox dropped when I first shot, obviously wasn't killed, because we didn't find it and later in the evening it showed up. We decided to clean the dead chicken, to be offered to a neighbor who asked us to save any roosters we didn’t want and he would eat them, so after skinning and gutting the chicken, I finished cleaning it up and Vicki washed it off good and placed it into a baggie and into the refrigerator. Tomorrow, we will take it to the blind neighbor who asked us to remember him. I will make sure he knows the fox killed it and he can decide if he wants to eat it. Once cooked, there would be no reason to worry about that though. In any event, I will make sure he knows how the chicken died.

Jeff and his crew came this afternoon and placed the ridge beam in place for the rear porch roof. He will return Tuesday sometime to finish the mainframe, and then start placing rafters and fascia boards. We will then order the steel roofing necessary to cover both sides. After this project is completed, Vick and I can eat our breakfast on the deck or grill a meal when it is raining. The rain will never again go through the screen door and soak the rear door. We’re looking forward to a dry kitchen floor in a rain storm.

We hatched a few ducks and a guinea fowl today and right now, we have another duck, a guinea fowl and a regular chick that should be ready to go to the heat box tomorrow.

We’re hoping for good weather tomorrow, so we can finish the walls on the gift shop and do the ridge board and start placing the roof rafters in place.