Hey! This marks 2 firsts, my first blog post on the new DSL and without pneumonia!

Well, wildlife might be a more accurate description. I was sitting here earlier watching a sporting event (if you don’t want spoilers, don’t click that link) with the doors and windows open so I could simultaneously enjoy the cool weather outside while the thunderstorms were taking a break, when my canine intrusion detection system went crazy.

I paused the live event (was there really life before DVRs?) and stepped to the screen door to see what was the matter. From somewhere outside I heard a series of very strange chitters. My only guess was a raccoon fight. With my ready carbine in hand I went out to make sure they were not battling over a big chicken dinner. 3 watts of LED tactical light showed no activity near the closest coop, but couldn’t quite reach the pond. It wasn’t raining so I went to the henhouse and found all quiet there, too. All the horses were calm which is a good sign. There was one more brief squabble, indeed down by the pond, then all was silent. With no problem to sort out I went back to my daily dose of violence.

Earlier today I solved another mystery. A few weeks back we found we had an egg thief. Our hens produce 7 to 10 eggs on an average day, but for a couple of days we got none. Since we found no egg shells nearby the assumption was someone was taking them. Shaking our heads in disgust at how low people could be we installed a lock on the henhouse door. Claire’s point was that she, and in very small number of cases even I, would feed anyone who told us they were hungry, so there was no reason to steal food that we work for. After the new security was in place egg production went back to normal… for a while.

When cleaning out a cluttered space in the poultry barn Claire found a stash of broken egg shells secreted in a cubby cole of junk. That means some small mammal was getting at eggs, but I am not convinced that was the entire mystery solved. Even after a series of hole patching and design upgrades eggs were still disappearing. Today I solved that problem for now.

As I went into the henhouse this morning I found a 4 foot Gray Ratsnake, not coincidentally called a chicken snake, in a nest box, and I jumped in to catch it. The weather was still cool and it had just consumed three chicken eggs, so it was not a lengthy chase. We have enough property here that I felt good about re-locating it at the very back of our farm. One day it might make it back up here, but I’ll repeat the process when that time comes. I like snakes and they do good things most of the time which makes them more dependable than most people.