Jingle Shells

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Christmas is a time for my family that anything can happen.  With three adult children, each with there own home, all within forty miles of our home, just agreeing on a place to meet can be challenging.

One child is a strict traditionalist.  Christmas will always be at the parents’ house.  The meals can’t change.  Christmas is Christmas.  One child was not keen on driving to their parental home on Christmas Eve, only to return on Christmas morning.  For some reason staying overnight was not an option.  I guess they want to sleep in their own beds. The third child is the voice of reason.  He/she was going to get a ride with someone else anyway.

We did break from tradition that I can’t see happening every year in the future.  Elaine returned to the house from feeding and watering the poultry in the daylight hours of Christmas Eve.  When she returned to the house she told me, “There is something digging under the coop and I saw one of the guineas trying to get out.”  I responded with, “If the birds can get out something bad can get in.”  I jumped into “no bending, lifting, and twisting mode”.  I told Elaine, “When Boy Twin gets here, we can get him to take care of it.”  Little did I know.

The kids arrived in the afternoon (three kids in two cars; I told you).  We were enjoying ourselves with appetizers (per tradition), laughing (no arguing, which can happen) and wrestling the puppies, (not me, Its forbidden by commandment).  It seemed like darkness came early and the kids started discussing returning to town. 

The puppies were in the yard barking, but they were more frantic than usual.  We have a herd of about twenty deer that graze in our pastures after dark.  It drives the puppies crazy.  But this wasn’t deer barking.  I thought I had better check on what was bothering them.

I turn on the exterior lights and scanned the pasture with a powerful flashlight.  I lit up the green eyes of what was bothering the puppies.  Mr. Fox had come for a Christmas chicken dinner, maybe more than one.

“Boy Twin, load the shotgun!” (see story title).  Mr. Fox didn’t get his chicken dinner, nor eggs for breakfast in the next morning.

I don’t see this as a new tradition to be practiced every year, but it did liven up this Christmas Eve, at least for Boy Twin.  (He filled in the hole under the coop also)

I hope your Christmas was something you enjoyed.  I hope you stuck with most of your traditions and maybe started a new one.

God Bless, Love ya, keep your guns unloaded, but hurry, your chickens will thank you.

Our crazy lives!

Monner