SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nope- not my planned project either!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had gone to be HOPING to get a good night's sleep because I had my First Knitting class this morning. Well, about 1:30 is AM I hear d rooster fussing at the top of his lungs. I would not normally hear this commotion if I was on the couch but I was "Testing" out my daughter's bed???? I had been trying to GO TO SLEEP anyway but with no success - I guess because I was excited at the prospects of learning something new???
I know from the past when a raccoon is in your chickens you only have a brief period of time to save them or it is all over but the praying of funerals!
So I toss on shoes and a jacket and a flashlight and hustle outdoors shinning the light as I go??? At first I do not see anything but then I see movement in the cage with the rooster-O- so I amble over there and discover a opossum in with him and him going nuts. RATS!!!!!! But at least it is not a raccoon! I get the door open and take a board and attempt to rake the dude out of the cage , but he is having nothing to do with it. He latches his "monkey feet" around the wire at the back and will not budge? I go around to the back of the cage and beg, plead , the poke with sticks ,jump up and down -but Nothing. GRRR! I get my breath and go for another round and FINALLy get him to move - only he goes UP IN the ROOF??? GRRRR! I decide I will go to the building and get some screws and a board and screw the board to the wire of the next cage that he has loosened by hanging onto it.
I pop through the door of the building looking and what does my eyeballs fall upon????? Not a screwdriver but ANOTHER DOG GONE OPOSSUM!!!!!!!!!! Double GRRRRRRRRRRRRR! It shimmies across the floor and up the wire on the side of one of the chicken runs to the top of their cage!
As my mouth GAPES open in disbelief -my eyes follow it up the wire and what do my eyeballs Now see????? Yep - you guessed it - ANOTHER DERN OPOSSUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This one the biggest of the group-perched on Top of another cage?????????????????????? By now I have decide I am in a opossum NIGHTMARE as the second one has found a weak spot in that cage and the wire is Hanging down and one of the little hens has hit the floor and I am having a heart attack my now?????????
I REALLY HATED to bother my daughter because it is 2:30AM by now and she gets up at 3:45Am but I am outnumbered so I take off up to her "Tiny House" and wake her up and ask her to get her gun???? I REALLY DESPISE killing any animal , but my precious little chickens lives are in danger.
We both stagger down the hill and attempt to try to figure out how to shoot the big guy without putting holes in the roof??????????? Finally I beg to hide my head outdoors and let her do the deed.
She comes out and says that critter is blessed because she missed him and all he did was move over one inch???? I check on the second one and it is bouncing up and down on the frail wire over the other cage. She goes for a cigarette and I go look for a cage????? I find an old carrying cage I use to show the bunnies in and bring it in the building, but have NO LOCK for it. I look high and low and finally end up getting two of my old dog leases and bring them in?????
NOW WHAT???????? These dumb critters have not moved a muscle for over another hour , except to twitch their ears at us. I march into the first run and look up at a critter Dangling from the wire and reach up and grab a tail!!!!!!!!!!! Yea, I am a girly girly and I wanted to "shrike" in fear and disbelief at what I am attempting to do . Now that I am latched on the critter tried to run off with me attached to its rear end. My only salvation is my 128pounds compared to her 10 pounds. We go up and down and finally she loses her grip and down she falls with me screaming - open the cage-open the cage and a big PLOP as I get her in the cage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By now I am trembling in disbelief at what has just transpired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE latch her in both sides of the cage and carry her back into the other room and look way up at the big dude who is suppose to be deceased but praying for his life now??? At the top of the roof. His big long tail looks like a snake hanging down and I again shiver in my cold wet shoes.
I try to lay out a plan - ( like-daughter, it's your turn) Haw,haw,haw! I clear a path and place the ladder at the desk and gauge where to put my feet -both going up and coming down with a load -give Crystal the look of "Man the cage" and up I go. I latch onto that tail with all my might -moving my hands up right at his rear end so I have a better hold and PULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL- He hangs tight for what seems an eternity and finally loses his grip and as I feel him coming I begin backing OFF the desk -letting his feet touch the desk so he thinks he is going somewhere (not up my arm) and then hit the ladder - letting him climb down the ladder as I get my feet on solid ground and swing him all the way to the cage that Crystal has timed perfectly for him to go in and for her to NOT COME OUT! Two locks and they are in ! They take one look at each other and you can see they are stunned. This was Not the way their Date was suppose to end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Me trembling - Crystal laughing -we Both dissolve in laughter!
The smaller one is impossible to get to so it just has to stay put ! By then Crystal has to go to work and I am too "Buzzed up" to sleep. I did wrap up and finally get warm -doze off - and get 3 hours sleep before my first Knitting class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( Is it no wonder I kept getting CONFUSED)
I loved my class and my instructor and when Crystal came home I conned her into driving me to Re-locate these two lovebirds to a nice country home beside a lovely creek! Of course it is on the Other side of the river and I hope they do not ever venture back. I have looked my building OVER and cannot figure out HOW in the WORLD they ever got in there??? I know this is bad because if they can get in there - then a dumb raccoon can and that would be a blood bath as I have seen them kill 30 chickens in one night!
But, I was blessed -no lives were lost this time - my only problem now is that the cage where the smaller critter started with the one rooster! Well, I have moved That rooster in there because he was flogging me in another building , so I had put him out there where I could feed him through the wire- only now he had tap danced across my head into the wild blue yonder and was waiting to greet me this morning as I was leaving with that "LOOK" in his eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GRRRRR!
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