Again?

As you read this story you might be thinking, "Monner. I've read this before." I can assure you that although this story has similarities to a story I recently told, this is a new story.

Elaine and I are seldom out after dark. It's not one of those "I don't like driving after dark" things, it's just we don't have many reasons to be out after dark. I don't precisely recall the reason we were out after dark, but while Ivy was in Iceland, Elaine and I found ourselves driving home in the dark.

I have described our driveway many times but for those of you that have forgotten, our driveway is about a quarter of a mile long. It is dirt with long pasture grass, on both sides.

On this particular night, driving down (or up, depending on your perspective as it could be said we were driving up to the house. But, you need to keep driving towards the house it is going down in elevation) the driveway our headlights illuminated a set of bright blue eyes in the grass next to the driveway. This is not an unusual thing to have happened. We have a herd of sometimes as many as twenty deer that sneak into our pasture to steal from Mac the Yak's and Yank the Llama's salt lick (Remind me to tell the story of why Yank was named Yank) These illuminated blue eyes were much closer to the ground than where a deer' eyes would be. Typically a deer would not have bright blue eyes even if headlights illuminated their eyes. Elaine and I discussed the eyes and decided it was possibly a feral cat or possibly a bobcat, it definitely was not a deer.

A couple of days late,r shortly before dusk, I suggested to Elaine that we lock the birds in the coop. Elaine was in charge of feeding, I was in charge of filling water buckets. Elaine finished the feeding and said to me "Hey, where are the turkeys?" We searched the yard and didn't find the turkeys.

Let me share a little bit about these turkeys. When I was asked what I wanted to name these turkeys, I thought Butterball and Hickory House would be appropriate. Well, let me tell you that didn't go over well! I was informed I needed to stop thinking of them as Thanksgiving turkeys. These guys were not going to be food at Thanksgiving or any other day.

I got on my four-wheeler and drove across the pastures in search of the turkeys. I was hoping they had found a place to roost while sitting on an egg. When I had finished my search, I returned to the house. One turkey had beat me home. That gave me more hope that the other turkey was roosting somewhere.

Another two days and the turkey did not return to the coop. It wasn't looking good for the turkey. Ivy was in Iceland. Considering she helped me raise the turkeys (and other birds, OK, she did most of the raising).she was not going to be happy about the missing turkey. I had to tell her. I might have made it worse when I asked "How many ducks do we have?" Yep, we were missing a duck.

The very next day in the late afternoon, I heard the birds making every kind of bird noise imaginable. I looked out the window to see a fox chasing a turkey. I screamed to Elaine, and the two of us distracted were able to distract the fox, the crisis was avoided, but we knew we had a problem

Strategizing, Elaine and I decided we would purchase a live trap and capture the fox, take him miles from here and release him into the wild. When I say Elaine and I decided, you and I know Elaine decided and I nodded in the affirmative. But, I need to say I might have had another plan.

I bought a live trap and pulled it out of the box. I set the trap up in the living room. It was too small. I put it back in the box while Elaine searched the internet for a bigger trap. She found one, in the state capital of a nearby state. We planned a road trip to pick up a larger trap in the neighboring state.. The part of our strategizing that we, including Ivy, agreed on was the birds were locked up in the coop until we had some kind of positive results.

We planned our road trip. We agreed to leave after Elaine finished her transmission lines for the day. Here comes the part that I didn't really like about the live trap idea. After the fox chased the turkey in front of us, I may or may not have loaded a gun and placed it by the front door. I know you should never have a loaded gun in your house. BUT! Some rules are made to be broken,.....or not.

Elaine and I were gathering our things and getting ready for our road trip. I glanced out the window and there was the fox trying to get in the door of the coop. The fox wasn't successful, so it tried another door. What happened next is a mystery. I heard a sound, very similar to Sunday morning when my neighbor is taking target practice waiting for Putin's invasion. Not the same sound, this sound was much closer and not as loud. I watched the fox fall. I sensed the fox had problems, so I went to it to try to help. I was thinking CPR, but I'm telling you this fox was not in the mood. It showed me its little turkey-killing fox teeth.

We didn't go on the road trip. There wasn't much of a need.

I know, at least I think, I was supposed to write a story about yarn this week. Does anyone have one? Ivy lost a hand-knit mitten in Iceland and is knitting a new one. Thanks for the online sales. We love ya. God Bless

Our crazy lives!

Monner