Day Four: Getting Outside When it's Frickin Cold

The high today is reported to reach 23.  I was feeling pretty low today, and was not even planning on going outside ~ truth be told, all my Good Habits fall by the wayside when I need them most.  Yoga?  stoopid.  Fresh air?  fuck that.  I was very glad to have some time to myself while my husband and girl ran errands.  And then I looked out the window to spy a FOX preening himself where our chickens usually like to sun themselves.  Oh, shit.  Since he wasn't "in the act" I thought it safe to take a hilariously poor-quality window shot to prove it (zoom in really far and you can see him with his copper-colored head bent over, pretty much smack-dab in the center of the photo, to the left of oak tree with clinging brown leaves) before I dashed out the door and hollered at him, saying what always comes out when I am shooing away animals we don't want to feed:  "I see you!"  And of course he escaped quickly and fleetly.  Any other time, I would be sneaking around doing my best not to startle a wild creature, so thrilled am I to spot one.  I have only recently even seen a fox ~ maybe even this one ~ in our woods.  After I scared that one away bc I was jogging, I swore I would never run in the woods again.  And here I am yelling at one with all my might.  I ran out to the yard, no chickens in sight.  To the coop.  The door is frozen shut, so I peek in the little chicken door.  I see the crumpled feather-fluffed body of one of the black n white ones.  Steaming.  Still warm.  And the thing about foxes is they don't even eat the whole bird.  So unfair. :-(  I feel responsible for these girls.  I get up and turn to see three of them huddled against our house, with their new rooster friend shielding them to a certain extent.  I roam the rest of the yard ~ the woods ~ where predators usually run off for their feast, and around the garden fence.  No carcasses, but no live girls either.  I call out, and one quietly tells her story from the tall grasses beside the shed.  I've found 6 out of, well ~ nine, now.  We have lost 3 in the past two weeks.  :-(  I guess it's time to get a dog.

What did I notice today?

Dead chicken

6 out 9 remaining chickens

bitter bitter biting cold wind

frozen water bowls

fox.