Egg-A-Day June 18 Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Father’s Day (or male guardian of whatever relationship, or male mentor…etc.) (Oh and I think I forgot to say Happy Mother’s Day way back when, so that too…).

Here come June 16th’s pictures. We are still having visits from the raccoon…although Kyle and I and Ralf do what we can to make the bugger feel uncomfortable when we notice it.

So, most days I take a peek into the dog house outside our fence (so basically, the dogs don’t get to use it). The chickens use it for dust bathing, and I put ashes from our wood stove (after they are totally cool!) in it, and the chickens love it. Last year, and I think maybe earlier this spring, we had chickens laying in it, but then they stopped and laid elsewhere. So once and a while, I don’t take a really good peek into the dog house… and then on the 16th, on my way back to the house after finishing (I thought) the Egg-A-Day, I peeked in and spotted …2 eggs! Someone had been laying in there, since of course, I hadn’t been looking in it. I was just pleased that the coon hadn’t spotted those eggs.

Then, here comes June 17. There were no eggs in the olive barrel (I’m not sure if a coon got them very neat and tidy-like, or if nobody laid there for whatever reason). I also heard a lot of “I’VE LAID AN EGG WHERE IS THE FLOCK” squawking from the back yard, so I made sure to check the back barrel.

So, of course, having checked the barrel, either a coon got that egg too (a tricky task for a coon) or she just was making a lot of noise for nothing. It looks like all the gals liked the little coop on the 17th. The coon visited us in that hard to describe time which, because of the sunset being later in the day than say, in December, means it’s kinda supper time (depending on your schedule), and it’s kinda the afternoon….(well, technically it is after noon, and it’s not night time yet)… and it’s probably what you’d call evening, but again, it wasn’t dark yet. Pretwilight? Kyle went nuts outside, jumping at the fence, and a lot of barking and bouncing. And the coon was about 8 feet up one of the trees at the top of the spring. So, I found the Wrist Rocket (the sling-shot thingy), and took some pot shots at it… I have a conundrum, I don’t want to …hurt… the coon. I mean, I don’t mind discomforting it temporarily, but hurting it because I have chickens in the woods….and it’s a living creature too. If I catch it in the yard, and could like instantly and painlessly kill it… I’d strongly consider that… but like, breaking a rib or something… I’m not in for that. That’s suffering and misery and not actually going to solve the problem anyway. A couple bruises to it’s bum.. fine. So I was trying not to like break it’s eyeball (not that I’m that great with aim), while hard enough to like hurt a bit if I did hit it with one of the rocks (small ones) I was using. First shot was (probably just luck) my best, it either hit the tree about 2 inches from it’s ribs and bounced into the ribs or just past the coon, but the coon definitely took notice (but didn’t yelp or flinch). It did move around the tree a bit, and then I tried squirting it with the strong smelling diluted herbal insect repellent mix I use as “dog distracter” by spraying next to a dog who won’t “leave it”.. not in the nose but close enough that a whiff usually gets their attention). The coon was a tad too far for it to really get squirted but it didn’t seem to like the notion of me getting closer and a better shot that way. After a few minutes, it came down the tree and headed back to the woods, with me taking semi gentle shots at it’s tush.

And today is the 18th, again, happy dad’s day (and belatedly mom’s day). This morning, I discovered I would need something like a bungee cord… because the coon figured out how to lever the lid off the galvanized metal bin/trash can like thing I keep the chicken feed in. There’s another one with a harder to get off lid (we have a few like that) but I honestly have serious trouble getting the lid off and on, to the point where if I’m having even a moderately poor day to start with, my language gets a bit colorful. So, for starters, it’s bungee the lid down tightly on the easy to use on… so I can just undo the bungee, use the lid, and redo the bungee. We’ll see if the coon figures the bungee out without taking it’s face off (the bungee isn’t exactly a weak on, or on slackly). Hopefully, it just doesn’t figure it out.

As of right now, post Egg-A-Day… evening time, the top was on the can. We also had a storm warning go off over the radio this afternoon at work, and though I didn’t see what happened at home, I got home a few hours after the storm rolled through, I can say that part of that system rolled over work too, and it was pretty heavy rain, a bit of thunder, and a lot of …rain. And also, the warning mentioned wind, which I couldn’t detect from work, but there were a lot of medium to small sized limbs down on the way home. And as you can see, some of the underbrush was definitely a bit splattered down (not like last year where it was hail lacerated). You can also see that the coon found at least one egg in the olive barrel.