Life & Foxes

Foxes are tenacious animals.  They will check their territory, and the prey within it, daily if possible.  If a chook pen (or a duck pen) is within their territory they will check it out for any weaknesses, for any way possible to get in probably everytime they are able to get near.  They don’t give up.  Now that we longer have any alpacas guarding the place, and only a Jack Russell who prefers to sleep in the laundry, we’ve had a number of fox attacks.  Everytime, we try to figure out how it happens and we fix it: once the gate was left open a wee bit, once the trampoline had been moved too close to the walls of the run, and once (and only once) we forgot to lock the birds in their shed. 

Once on a Sunday morning I walked out to the chook-run I noticed the gate had banged itself open only a wee bit in the windy night and the shed was still closed, but there were feathers everywhere.  My heart sank.  Before I opened the shed I walked around it, and found about 4 different attempts to dig under…all thwarted by an iron tent peg, a brick or stone.  But there was one gap about 6 inches long that missed a peg, between two bricks…and that is where they had dug in and dragged out every chicken I had except for a badly shocked Orpington.  Dragging her out would have been like trying to get your head into a sock!

At the time I was home alone, and I felt broken and weary.  I checked forums and read about the same pain felt by other poultry owners, the same hatred of foxes.  Pretty animals that they are, I am not saddened to see them squashed on the road because their ability to randomly infiltrate and destroy.  And it’s not like they are limited to the rural areas either (or four legs for that matter: I seem to have two legged foxes doing what they can to bring me undone in insidious ways also)…I recall a night in the city when a chooky screech got me up and outside still asleep, only to see a fox scale an 8 foot fence with absolute ease and grace.  He had killed every single hen I had, and then he returned the next night and tried to get the cat and the rabbit!

Reading those forums, I had some comfort that UK poultry owners had exactly the same feelings I was having, but in the UK foxes are protected animals.  Over there foxes are as likely to strike during the day, and are unafraid and cunning enough to attack even with people about.  Many people as a result have electric fencing around their backyard birds…the kids get used to it after a while.

So, I have bought concrete blocks and filled the floor of the shed in, I am buying a better latch for the gate, and I will be netting the roof of the run…somehow.  It’s all I can do, but I won’t give up.  What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger…and hopefully smarter.

23/10/09

It’s three and a half weeks later, I just went to let the chooks out and found that foxes AGAIN have attempted to dig under…there were 5 different attempts that I could find…the biggest hole was in the same spot as the one last time that they’d dragged the chooks out of.  They had even managed to dig a brick out!  Happy to report, the concrete block floor did its job, and all five hens were safe and hungry!  The blocks didn’t even move, or fall in!  A success!  Now to figure out how the blighters are getting into the run…I’m thinking netting the top of the run will be this weekend’s job.

But just to point out: foxes never tried to dig under in the four years we’ve been here…and then did it with great success three weeks ago…now they’ve tried it a second time, so now I need to expect that digging will always be a part of their M.O.

My Favourite Things: NY 2

1.  The friendly, friendly people like New York Police Officer Ray and his Good Horse.  Hey Ray!  Seriously, these people are a credit to New York.  Hey Avi & Maudrey, Marty and family, and the countless…I mean COUNTLESS people who were only too happy to help us, point us in the right direction, show us subway shortcuts or have a chat.

 

2. New York is so atmospheric, no matter the weather.  It actually rained almost the entire time we were there in very early Spring and it didn’t matter at all…it just lent itself to that intangible New Yorkness.  You know?  It is a word.

3.  Tiffany’s.  I. Had. No. Idea.
I am not a jewellery person, so Tiffany’s – Meh.  Or so I thought!  We wandered into Tiffany’s about 5 seconds before a 2 day deluge started (see #2) and there we were…wafting around in our damp, well worn travelling clothes, looking in glass cases at beautiful, shiny things with golden glowing lighting all around us, soft jazz playing, and the silver rain teeming outside the enormous picture windows.  Everyone was smiling and spoke in hushed tones….except my sister who was saying “Could I look at that please, Paul?  Ooh and that?  And, OH, do you have that in silver? Oh, Paul, Paul look!  Is that for a little girl?”  Boy, was she excited!  I actually found myself the most perfect ring ever: The Tiffany’s Nature Rose Ring, and I bought it for myself (unheard of) for my 40th Birthday (which is in December).   Thankyou, Maggie and Paul…you were wonderful and made our experience just that much more special with your humor and patience.

4.  I really like your yellow things.  Your yellow things are almost orange: the school buses, the cabs, the cheese.  It’s a happy color, against the muted urban landscape.  And in cheese, it’s just yummy.

5.  When we were at Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market, I overheard a guy answering his phone.  He said: “Hey, Morty!  How the Hell are ya?!”  This was one of my favourite things for so many reasons: flea market (briefly, not raining), hearing a line spoken in an accent that I thought was too good to be true.  The whole conversation was fascinating, and the guy didn’t even seem to mind that I was following him around, giggling the whole time.

6.  Bryant Park on a sunny day, with no rain (Duh), with a Baguette, a juice, and a bag of fabric to rest my head on.  Life doesn’t get much better than that.
 Can’t you tell?

And the funny thing is: we found Bryant Park, stumbling on it accidentally about 25 minutes after leaving our hotel room, but it ended up being only 5 minutes away!  You know, the thing with New York is that you cantake a different parallel street from the one you normally take and discover a whole world you didn’t know existed.  I love that.  Luckily we found Bryant Park on this day, because we didn’t have another dry day until the hour we got in our cab to go to the airport.  It was meant to be.

 Sigh!

7.  The Garage Flea Market, where a lady asked me if I’d like to buy one of her Homemade Brownies before I fell over.  I think we forgot to have breakfast ( I know, WHOA, what happened?…In fact I think we slept in and missed our free Brekky and thought we could do without.  HA!)  That delicous Brownie saved my life.  Best Brownie ever!

8. Johnny’s Diner, next door.  It was maybe 2 metres wide, with half a dozen stools lined up to the counter, and the cook seemed to know what you wanted by looking at you.  I had an Egg and Bacon Roll and juice.  It was quick and it was good and hot.  I felt well looked after.  It was also surreal, like we’d walked onto a movie set, with the rain outside, and everyone at the counter intent on the meal in front of them. 

9. Becoming familiar: our hotel peeps, our favourite Deli, so many people saw our faces amongst the thousands of faces, and so many of them smiled and waved if they saw us again.  Hey, There’s Ray!  Hey, Ray!  Hey, Good Horse!

 

10.  Travelling with my sister…for obvious reasons.

 Sharing outrageous meals and Pomegranete Margaritas…

 Making me laugh in photographs (for a change)…

 And for being an idiot with me in Museums, for posterity and the amusement of German tourists.  Way too much fun!

Friday Funnies

Because its Friday, and everyone needs to cry with laughter on a Friday.  It makes the week that’s been all better.

It’s business time.