Category Archives: Pets and Animals

Henhouse Attack

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We had an uninvited visitor to the henhouse last night. Britton woke up when he heard a bunch of screams from the chickens at about midnight. The creature went in the henhouse and attacked the girls. It appears to have pulled out Omelette and then Greenfoot. Luckily, they escaped, but not without the loss of a lot of feathers.  Britton saw it scale the fence. He thought it was a darker color with a thin body and longish tail. We had to coax them all to get back into the coop and actually grab and put Greenfoot back in, she was so shaken up.

We locked up the coop really good and after some tossing and turning, we finally got back to sleep.

Then at about 3am, I woke up hearing the chickens fluttering around and making noise, though not as noisy as the earlier episode. I woke up Britton and he ran to the window. He said he could hear the creature scratching on the coop, but couldn’t get in. When Britton opened the window next to the coop, the Thing took off again right over the back fence to the empty field. Again, a blur.  It makes me wonder where Kitty was when all of this was happening since he is an outdoor cat.


Many of Greenfoot’s wing and back feathers

Losing feathers is actually an antipredation defense to help them get out of the grips of harm’s way. When a predator tries to grab them, the feathers tear loose and all the predator has is a handful (pawful) or mouthful of feathers, but the bird (hopefully, and in this case) survives.


Omelette is missing front feathers


Greenfoot’s wing feathers and some back feathers are completely gone

We’re not sure what it was, but it could possibly be a raccoon, weasel, skunk or maybe a fox, but it didn’t have a fluffy tail or obvious scent, so I am leaning toward weasel or mink. We laid in bed talking about possible solutions for about an hour (until 4am). We thought of making them live in a chicken run, but 1) it’s a lot of work to build one, 2) they will wreck the yard if it stays in only one place too long, 3) I wouldn’t want to be completely locked up my whole life, 4) the creature struck in the middle of the night, so it is unlikely it would come during the day.

We also talked about getting a gun of some sort to shoot it, but we were afraid we might mess up our fence or accidentally shoot Kitty or something. We don’t own a gun, but I can see how a farmer or rancher would need one! We also talked about electrifying our back fence -which might work, but is expensive. We are probably going to try and find a live-trap and see if we can’t catch this thing.

What do you think? Any ideas what it could be? Any ideas of how to get rid of it? Anyone have a trap they could loan us? Part of this was our fault. We had been spoiled with never having an incident so we got lazy and didn’t shut them in securely every night. That might be all we need to do to keep them safe, but I guess it’s kind of like people who leave their doors unlocked every night and then the one night someone breaks in you say, ‘well we should have locked it’.

At least everyone made it through ok. I left Schnoodle outside today to keep an eye on things while we’re at work. Not that a blind, deaf 13-year old dog could be of much help, but maybe it will help as a deterrent. Britton also “marked his/our territory” (peed on the fence) this morning as some of the advice to keep predators away suggests to do.

Argh. What a long, restless night -for all of us.

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Poudre River Flood

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They have some roads closed off on the north side of town.  The Poudre River is over its banks in areas due to the melting snow in the mountains and recent rain.   The trail is only a few miles away so Cassie and I figured we would jump on our bikes and see if we could get into trouble. 


East meets west, but the road is Closed.

We actually didn’t encounter too much resistance to jump the signs and get a closer look.  This is a small ditch, and it took out the trail completely.


Like I said, it used to be a small ditch.


You can see where its widening out

There are all kinds of news reports going on talking about the flooding.  Its only a few miles from our house too!  But all is dry here, so all in all a nice night to lay in the grass and watch the chickens and pets in the lawn.


Writing this post for LifeTransPlanet in the yard!

 

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Our House: Looking Back on Life in Greeley

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Our backyard is so peaceful. This is a picture looking back at it from the front. You can see Omelette the leghorn chicken, our flower garden, our greenhouse, our apple trees and birch trees. The sun is about to go down over the lake and the mountains.


Our serene backyard
After 7 years of living here in Greeley in this house, I think we have it -almost- just the way we like it. It’s crazy because I remember when we first moved to this house. Schnoodle was sitting on my lap as we drove away in Britton’s parent’s old van with a van-full of my things from my parent’s house in Nunn. We slept on the floor that first night because we were too tired to put anything together. And all the sounds of the house scared me. I was nervous. I was 22. Britton and I had bought a house!

And what a house! It had no grass, no plants, no fence, no sprinkler system, no A/C, no greenhouse, an unfinished basement, and it didn’t even have window coverings or light bulbs (it was a foreclosure)!

So we did a LOT of work. We spent a lot of time and money on this house to make it just how we wanted. A backyard for Schnoodle and Kitty (and then the chickens) was accomplished after putting in a sprinkler system, installing grass and other landscaping, and putting up a fence. We put in the A/C the second year we were here after a 100 degree summer of 2003.

Finishing the basement was fun because we designed it all ourselves. I wanted something warm and bright where we could entertain friends. To accomplish that we put in a fireplace and a wet bar. At the time we thought we might do a sauna, but the fireplace won. I think it was the better choice -although a sauna would rock! To see some before and afters of our basement you can check this out.

This house has a lot of memories for us. We love it because we are on the edges of town and so it feels like we are in the country but we have all the benefits of the city like riding our bikes downtown, walking to parks, doing fun things. My favorite thing? The Colorado sunsets in the summer. What would I change? I would love to get a little more land so we could garden more and have some more animals (chickens, goats, bees). I would like to do more landscaping around the edges of the backyard. I would like a bigger garden. (See I told you I always have projects).

As for things I probably can’t change but wish I could? I wish it didn’t have an HOA even though Britton’s the president of it. Well, and of course I wish we didn’t have such cold winters. That and the fact that we’ve lived in the Greeley area our whole lives (and all that entails) are really the main reasons we would ever leave.

It’s pretty nice to be able to look back and realize that we’ve done a whole heck of a lot in this last decade. This house of ours will always be a part of us no matter where we go. I’ve only lived in three houses my entire life so far. And this little house of mine is my home. We are in a unique time right now. A time of waiting and deciding our future. It is nice to have time for reflection and processing to help clarify our vision of the future. The future is hard to see, but I know that anywhere else (Puerto Rico) I live will bring with it a little piece of my life here in Greeley and with it, my lessons from my first home with my sweet husband.

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