Good News, Bad News

We had a good news, bad news weekend.  Hubby's  younger sister, along with her two young grandchildren, came for a visit on Saturday. We took the children to see our chickens (more about them later) and our neighbours goat farm.  It was such a fun time and, of course, I took lots of photos.  Our little great niece hates bugs so I put one of my bug hats on her.  She wore it the rest of the afternoon and took it home with her.  We gave her brother a similar one.

 Bug free

 Fun with goats

and ponies

and great uncle's gold fish.

The next day was a normal Sunday; church, lunch etc.  When evening came, hubby went out to put the poultry to bed.  He had been gone quite a while and I was just going to call to see if everything was all right.  Before I could do that, however,  he came in with some bad news.  Something had got to the hens (we think while we were at church or we would have heard the nose from them and the dog barking) and killed four of them.  All that was left was some feathers so we assume it was fox or coyote.  We were also missing our little female banting.  She had been sitting on a nest of eggs.  We still haven't seen her so she is either in hiding or has also been killed.  We don't really think the later as she can fly really well and would have been able to escape.  We are still hoping she will return although it is too late now to hatch the eggs.

We hate when we lose a hen but it does happen when you live in a rural area.  You have the choice of keeping them in the coop or letting them run free.  We think they have a better life if they are allowed to be free but, of course, there is always a down side.

Next step is a noisy motion detector.

Despite everything, it was a great weekend thanks to the little ones.

My favourite photo.

Blessings,