Thursday - 328th

We wake up to icy rain. The temps hover at freezing and though we know there will be snow soon, underneath that fresh layer of white stuff there will be a slick sheet of ice. Groan!

It gets worse.

I move with some alacrity this morning. I need to wipe off the still mushy ice from the car and, of course, I want to feed the animals. 

As I enter the barn, I sense that something is a little off. The coop door is open, as it should be. But Happy and two girls are prancing about in the corner of the coop. Pepper is in the barn. What's going on here?

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

In one opposite corner of the coop I spot a possum. Sitting over the dead body of Java. Our oldest, motherly, sweet and good Java. 

I quickly try to get the three trapped chickens to leave the coop, but Peach and Happy stubbornly refuse to move toward the door. I call Ed, madly, anxiously, he comes quickly and pulls them out. Tomato is missing. I have to think she was mauled and carried away by perhaps another possum -- who knows. She's gone.

We block the coop exit with a trap, but the possum refuses to budge, nestling itself on its catch. We hope in the course of the day we can get it out. For now, we retreat, struggling to make sense of what happened.

We had not seen any signs of wild animal life since we removed three possum last month. But, in hindsight, we should not have given up on trapping these beasts. Going forward, we have to move to a different winter strategy. With the cold spell rolling in tomorrow, the cheepers wont be leaving the coop, making themselves vulnerable all over again. All four of them. So we'll lock them in for a while until the weather is good enough for them to want to head out. But that's a plan for tomorrow. Today is looking to be a very long day indeed.

(Yesterday there were six, now there are four.)

Breakfast. Somber. Should we get new chicks this spring? Ed asks. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know.

In the meantime, the new feral cat, call her (or him) Pancake, is being hunted by the pack of six feline farmette residents. They sniff out the writers shed, make sure there is no intruder, then, satisfied, they retreat to the sheep shed (except for Dance, who retreats to the porch and eventually the farmhouse). 

(by the drying face masks) 

 

 

And this is when Pancake crawls out from underneath the writers shed. It's raining, no, snowing, and there she is, waiting with hope for food. I rush it to her, wanting so much to fill her up before the bitter cold sets in.

 

Winter, early spring -- these are the mean seasons here on the farmette. Last year, we lost a few kittens. The year before, a hawk took one of the cheepers. And before -- a beast raided the coop and took away two young pullets. You can't be surprised -- it happens to all free rangers and feral packs. Foxes, possum, raccoons, coyotes, hawks -- they all need food. Still, our animals are as close to pets as you're going to get without actually having them curl up under the quilt with you. And so every raid is a loss. And today, we lost the oldest and the youngest. Darn it all.

 

In other news, I got a call from Fox News this afternoon. After a brief chat, the Fox guy asked me if I would agree to be interviewed for their nightly news program. Why me, you ask. Well, when our state was establishing vaccination priorities, I'd taken the time to write a letter with comments (hey, they invited public comments and I am the public!). The Fox News guy had read them (I guess they're public record) and wanted more insights, especially since our university had established some vaccination priorities that are fodder for controversy-seeking news outlets. Predictably, I politely declined, but I did feed him some soundbites that might be fun to use. Given the nature of this game, I doubt he'll go down that diffusing-controversy-peace-seeking path, but still, I tried.

LATER:

The snowfall is very pretty (and constant), but I cant say we're tempted to head out. Ed has work meetings and besides, the roads are still snow covered and slippery.

 

 

I think about chickens and new cars and Fox News and anything at all that will distract me from editing sentences -- something that is becoming more tedious even as I get closer and closer to the end of the writing project. (Notice how I no longer call it Great. Even in jest. I'm on the hundredth version, and so it is in my mind anything but great. More like a headache that jumps from one lobe to the next and refuses to ever leave my head.)

Toward evening, we are too housebound, too restless. What do you think? -- he asks. I don't know -- I respond. But as always, the desire to not get too soft, too stiff, too darn lazy pushes us out the door. And on our drive through what surely feels like blizzarding snow, we see this animal cross the road, heading straight for the farmette lands.

Great. A coyote. 

Honestly, I feel our cheepers, our cats are under seige!

The skiing? It is solitary and beautiful.

Never say no to skiing. A bath in the forest, a return to sanity after this crazy day.

The four chickens had trudged to the garage earlier in the day and we close the door on them there tonight, because it really is looking like the possum wont budge out of the coop for now. Poking him with a shovel did not work. We'll see what tomorrow will bring. 

For us -- it's time for a frittata supper. With potato, and brussel sprouts and mushrooms. And lots and lots of cheese.