It never fails… the best fun always happens when I’m not around. I happened to be out of town this last week for work. Were Liz and I to trade places, I’m pretty sure I’d go crazy with her on the road from time to time and me left at home to manage all the affairs. This week though, she gave me even more evidence of her outstanding ability and my unworthiness in comparison.
As I was boarding my plane early Friday AM to come home I noticed a voice-mail that must have come in while my phone was going through the airport security protocols or I was rushing madly to make my gate after the planned one and one-half hour drive to the airport turned into three hours courtesy of regional flooding and closed roads. After barely making my flight (I boarded right before they closed the doors), I listened to the voice-mail. It turns out Syd had woken early and decided to go out on the back porch and watch the sunrise. In addition to seeing a beautiful sunrise, she saw half a dozen “crazy” coyotes “jumping” around in the back lot. Liz was calling to ask what she should do and if it was okay to shoot one.
By the time I called her back, she’d gotten her gun, gone out back, and popped off a round. The whole pack scattered, but not before killing and eating two of our chickens. Liz wasn’t convinced she’d hit anything, but a little later Isaac went out back and saw them in the next field over. One of them could only walk a few steps before collapsing. I hope the stupid thing dies a slow death. Over-all, that’s pretty impressive. Rather than mess with a long-gun she wasn’t particularly familiar with, she grabbed her handgun. Given where the coyotes were and where the fence was, she couldn’t have been closer than about 30 feet. A coyote is a pretty small target, and 30 feet is pretty far for a 3 inch barrel.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the pack learned their lesson. They came back last evening while we were out at Sydney’s performance and killed four more chickens. I can’t afford to loose any more. The stupid little birds take forever to start laying eggs, and at the going rate I’ll be out of layers within a week. In the interest of fresh eggs, I’ll be waiting for them with a big scary black rifle. This could be an entertaining night…