It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

Wait, that title isn't quite right.... 

It was a dark and clear night.  Three of us had just returned from a nice vacation to the great NW and one of us said, "Hey, how are the chickens?"  And this is the story... 


It was a dark and clear night.

We had just returned from a great trip to see Aunt N and Uncle B.  J wanted to be sure to have plenty of adventures on his portion of the trip and he did.  

Hiking down to the river from the house, trail clearing, marveling at the large trees...

(it's the same tree, just different lighting, but check out J at the base)... 

trying to have mom taste the licorice fern that Uncle B showed him how to find.  

checking out the beaver damage 

at 'Beaver Monument'.

Then Uncle B, his fishing & hunting buddy J, aka Mr. H (not to be confused with Mr. H from the East Coast) and J went out and had their own adventure.  They first headed to the coastal inlet, right behind WalMart to see about catching some fish, but the fish had all gone.  

So they went off to the Satsup River and very quickly after being there Mr. H had something on his line.  Being very thoughtful to his guest from TX he passed the rod to J and he proceeded to bring in and land an 18 lb King Salmon. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right season for keeping those guys, even for cute little kids from TX, so they had to let it go, but drew quite a bit of attention from the other fishermen also on the river.  

Then as J stood there with rod in hand he managed to foul hook another fish.  That one took off and as J tried to reel that one in too, he got twisted up, and ultimately took a swim in the river.  When they came back into the house J had on a pair of pants that went up to his armpits and were several sizes too big.  "Don't ask," is all he said as he walked past us to go downstairs to change.  Of course B had all of the details to share and we all had a great laugh.

Unfortunately there were no pictures of all of that, so it's just a fish story and one for the memory.  A few more adventures, and great food, but then it was time to head back home.  

By the time we got home on Monday evening and peeked into the coop we found no one home.  Uh oh.  

and to make matters worse

the eggs were crushed too.  

As best as we can tell based on the egg count, this all happened on the first day/night of our trip.  How did that critter know we weren't home?  

Was it the hawk we saw on the power line as we were leaving for the airport?  Would a hawk eat a chicken a day?  Was he/she hosting an early Thanksgiving feast on our chickens?

As usual there was no evidence of a squabble.  No extra feathers or anything anywhere that we could see when the sun came up this morning.

And something crushed the eggs in the coop; a new twist on things...

It's getting mighty lonely out here.  BUT... 

...we have 25 chicks headed our way in early January for a 4H project.  That should provide some interesting blog content for at least six weeks until the stock show.  Hopefully the hawk moves on before the chicks arrive.

In the mean time I'm looking for a sale on eggs.