A fox in the hen yard

Our little farmer recently saw feathers in our yard and came to me to tell me that a hawk had been taking the chickens. We walked around the yard, and yes, I saw a few feathers, but nothing like the powerful taking that a hawk does to it's prey. We should have seen feathers and blood all over the yard. I confess, I began to believe she was just being overprotective. So, we did a head count and came up short. VERY short. Then it dawned on me, she had seen a little orange critter earlier. I turned to her and said "the fox is doing it."

Sure enough, that little bugger had been taking our birds. So far, it looks like 2 adult chickens, 4 baby ducks, and 4 baby chickens have fallen prey to the fox.

We just don't have a big enough indoor space for the birds to be cooped up all day, so that's not an option. Instead, she's been tying the dogs out in the back yard and staying out in the yard with them. Well, yesterday, our oldest girl Zen took off through the woods (still tied to the long lead) and chased that nasty little thing through the woods. Woo hoo, I can just imagine the joy on her face (she LOVES to chase) and the fear in the eyes of that little fox as she turned tail and ran for her life. Depending on how hungry she is (with that many birds gone, I suspect not very) and how many kits she has to feed, she may be back, but I doubt it will be soon. In the meantime, we are now working harder to get fencing up to protect our flock, in what little time we have to spare as it is.

With the long, long hours at work I've been putting in to get the year end completed, I've not had much time to blog. I do have pictures to post, as I've been promising, but haven't had the time to get them uploaded. As a result of this lack of time, I've not had time to do much wild collecting of food. We did harvest some honey recently, and the girls (chickens) and I harvested our garlic. Mostly, our dreams of partial self sufficiency with gardening and wild collecting have been falling apart.

Which brings me to the next point, how to declutter and slow down our lives. It looks like this is the path we should be taking before undertaking any new tasks.