A Tough Day

Some days are just tough.

A tragedy has occurred on our little farm.

This morning, I noticed that Mabel, Owen's chicken, was not in the chicken run with the other chickens.  Mabel likes to fly whenever possible, so I figured she was just being adventurous.  I took Nash and headed out to get her back with her mates.  What I found was unimaginable...

Inside of our small chicken run, there were three dead chickens, two dead ducks, and another chicken injured.  The only one of our original chicken brood unharmed was Mabel.  An unknown animal had either scaled the fencing, or flown in from overhead.  The creature didn't eat the chicks and ducks-just killed them and left them.

I know this is farm life, but this is our first year of farm life.  These chicks weren't just backyard chickens.  They each belonged to one of my children and were loved by our family.  We had raised them from day-old puff balls to almost fully mature chickens.  They were gentle and tame and loved to be snuggled.  The ducks would happily quack and follow us anywhere we went, and loved nothing more than to swim and dive in their little kiddie pool.

This afternoon, we had to tell our children about what had happened.  We had to tell them that only two chickens were still alive.  You might think that Alayna and Owen aren't as upset as the other kids because their chickens are still alive, but that's not the case.  Everyone is feeling everyone's sorrow on this one.

After dinner, Jason buried our five pets on our property and the kids decorated rocks in their memory to place over their grave.

Tonight, I'm sitting with the kids talking through tears about why this happened and how we can prevent it from happening again.  We've decided that we're going to help Lizzie heal from her injuries and that Mabel and Lizzie are now responsible for raising our smaller chicks and how they're going to be great leaders.

We always knew that farm life has its tough moments, and today we got an extra big helping of TOUGH.  So, we're going to cry this day off as best as we can tonight and then begin our healing and forward progress tomorrow.

Rest In Peace to Jackie, Cecilia, Rosie, Joey, and Chandler.