Something's out there in the woods.
Something that has been nabbing livestock. The latest has been Mrs. Duckfire, the duck who adopted the brood of eleven chicks when their mother disappeared. At one time we also had a Mr. Duckfire, but he too is gone.
We've clicked through a mental PowerPoint presentation of possibilities.
• A fox? Possibly. One year we had a family who was using our farm as the Chicken Pick 'n Save.
• A wolf? A neighbor lost two of her goats to a wolf several years ago, but we haven't heard any in this area lately.
• But several bear sightings around Bruno Township have given us an idea of what the intruder is.
Our dog, Watch, a confirmed housedog, now chooses to spend his nights outdoors. He digs a burrow in the ground, lays down, and watches. Sometimes we hear him tear into the woods, a deep-throated bark echoing in his wake. When he comes in, he's anxious and clingy, the way he is during deer hunting season, when he gets a bellyache after scrounging in a gut pile left by a hunter.
Or at least I think it's a hunter.
Something that has been nabbing livestock. The latest has been Mrs. Duckfire, the duck who adopted the brood of eleven chicks when their mother disappeared. At one time we also had a Mr. Duckfire, but he too is gone.
We've clicked through a mental PowerPoint presentation of possibilities.
• A fox? Possibly. One year we had a family who was using our farm as the Chicken Pick 'n Save.
• A wolf? A neighbor lost two of her goats to a wolf several years ago, but we haven't heard any in this area lately.
• But several bear sightings around Bruno Township have given us an idea of what the intruder is.
Or at least I think it's a hunter.
I love Watch! He is so cute. Do you worry about him being out at night with a mystery killer? We had a number of coyotes in our area and they made me very nervous. Two were in our yard, 20 feet from the house, howling. In the daytime! I wouldn't let our little beagle out on his own for a while. He would be the perfect sized appetizer. And your woods do look very much like ours!
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