The hunt is on

Last week, Silkie Sue was killed by a raccoon.  We found her body with evidence to prove who killed her.  It was sad because she's been such a great girl and was a wonderful mom hen to so many of our hatches.  She was also in the very first batch of girls that we got.

So we had a hunter come set traps to protect the rest of our birds and I set up our game camera.

It was only the second time that I pulled the card and I saw this fox walking across the driveway into the garden area.

A few days later he caught a fox.  He also was tracking the foot prints and found two sets of fox tracks, at least one raccoon and an opossum.

This morning the youngest came running inside to say that a opossum was in one of the traps.  I went out to snap a picture and felt really bad.  It's so cute!

The trapper came and took care of things.  I don't know what that means because I don't want to know.  I know he's let some things go before, especially younger animals, but I know I need to protect our hens so I just let him do what he does best.

Dog updates

The 5-gallon bucket that we keep outside to refill chicken water bowls froze solid.  It wasn't just the top later, it was a complete block.  I brought the bucket inside thinking it would defrost, but apparently the kitchen isn't much warmer because after a few days, the only defrosting occurred from the dogs licking it.

So the oldest decided to hack away at the block to give the dogs some ice to eat.

They went crazy for chunks of ice and were running around the house playing with them.  It was hilarious.

Later, Paisley was curled up on the arm chair, nice and cozy, until Cash decided to come over...

Firewood

I came home from the gym this morning and decided it was time to start cutting up the trees that the county chopped down.  I knew it would be easier to cut them when they were still fresh, and I figured it was an eye sore.  I cut them into firewood size chunks with the chainsaw and then had the boys come out to help me.

We loaded up our little trailer and I'd drive them up the driveway to unload behind the house where our firewood pile is.  

The first load

 I told the oldest that he gets to split them with the ax and I went back down to get a second load with the youngest.

When I came back, I was suprised to see how much he'd split.

Baby, it's Cold Out There

We had a pretty cold patch with temperatures below freezing even during the day.  The chickens didn't want to venture too far from the coops because they didn't like walking on the cold ground.  Clyde Jr. proved that point when he refused to stand on both feet.