The Raid

I was singing a new song to Penelope as we completed the "home stretch" of our nightly walk.  A short spell struggling to remember the words to the the second verse (which was different from the first) left a moment of silence in the forest.  That's when a stricken cry of a chicken penetrated the foggy air.  We immediately looked for our dog Luna (AKA the white wolf).  To our chagrin she was no where to be found.  

Silence continued.  Then, off in the distance, ruckus noise once again muffled it's way through the damp fir and spruce stands to our ears.  Something was wrong!  Here in the back edge of our neighbors land we knew our missing dog was either gleefully massacring their chickens or chasing a deer.  Taking no chances we made our way to their coop.  All we could see was Luna's pom-pom of a white husky mutt tail bobbing.  The rest was silence.  My heart sank as I approached the raided open-air coop.  Feathers still floating in the breeze; four dead chickens were strewn outside.  One carcass remained in the coop.  Luna sheepishly cowarded at the fence line.  She had effortlessly jumped the defenses and systematically snapped the necks of the entire brood.  We were speechless.  I had handed off Penelope before I had approached the scene so I scolded the mutt without inhibition and dragged her by the collar back over the fence and towards the house of the unsuspecting owners- and our good friends.  

"I've got some bad news" I said as the door opened.  "Luna killed your chickens."  "All of of them?"  For some reason the response startled me.  I didn't know what to say.  I had seen a number of dead birds but didn't exactly know.  "She did a number on them" I replied.  We walked back down to the crime scene and in shock gave our deepest, most heart-felt apologies.  After a few speechless moments and futile apoligetic attempts.  We made our way home.

As it turns out she didn't kill them all.  One had apparently flown up into a tree, survived a night of freezing temperatures and showed up the next day plucking the ground for bird seed outside the wood shed!  Even better our friends have been kind enough to forgive us (not sure about the dog though).

When we first moved out here I wasn't sure how I felt about having two families on each side of our land.  I guess that I figured that I was moving out into the woods to get away from folks and live this self-sufficient life.  Now, for many more reasons than I can explain to you in words, I couldn't imagine life out here without those companions.  We built at the same time.  We've struggled individually and together. We harvested at the same time.  Mainly we pass by in the truck on the way to town and give the Northern Minnesota salute.  Sometimes we stop and chat about the weather or wildlife encounters on the trail.  But more importantly, we are growing into a community.  It takes respect, good will and friendship to make that happen.  Even in horrible events like this you realize how much bigger our community is than the individual events that craft the episodes of the experiences we share.  I'm sad that those laying hens had to unmercifully die.  At the same time, I'm so glad that we have such great people to deal with those events together...