Saturday, May 22, 2010

Livin' Out Here Ain't for Sissies


I enjoy weeding. It’s therapeutic for me. Yesterday morning as I weeded my flower garden I felt the sun, smelled the earth and listened to the birds. Suddenly my serenity was shattered by the loud squawking of several chickens. This is not unusual. The hens will squawk for a second or two just after they’ve laid an egg as they are racing back to reunite with the flock. But this was different.  It was more than one bird and it was longer and faster. So I stood up to peer in the direction of the noise. Out they burst from the canopy of the woods, running in my direction. But they brought a predator with them. A coyote was hot on their trail! You should have heard me scream. Waaahhhhhh! They were unknowingly headed straight for me.  My only defense was the noise I was making. I hoped I might scare the coyote by screaming. So I screamed louder. I was also instinctively trying to run the other way. I had to take my eyes off them as I tried to run backwards making sure I wasn’t going to fall over our rock wall. When I looked back there was a pile of white feathers and the coyote was walking back into the woods. I guess the noise worked. I walked over to the edge of the yard and peered through the brush. I could still see her walking away, but I couldn’t tell if she had a chicken in her mouth or not. We've lost 4 chickens in the past month and we are pretty sure this is the reason. 
My view, see the white feathers.

The survivor.

And then this morning Blake found this in the bathroom. 

This thing was huge. We've seen them in our pump house for years, but never in our house! I've identified them before but checked my book again and feel pretty certain it is a fishing spider.
 
As much as we hate to, we may have to spray the bathroom. 

And now we are going to pick flowers. I wonder what we might find. My camera is charged and ready.

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