Since the New Year things have been a little off around these parts. First, we had no snow until January then it didn’t stop snowing until late April. We got storm after storm, each dumping a foot onto us.
When it finally stopped snowing in April, it got warm for about two days then the cool, wet weather came. It was overcast for weeks at a time. Because of the wonky weather the flowers were slow to come out of the ground and bloom.
The bugs, however, were abundant. First the black flies were awful. I don’t remember them being this bad EVER. Then the mosquitoes came when the sun came back and they have been awful ever since. Being outside to work in the garden has become almost impossible because the mosquitoes are so abundant and vicious.
A few weeks ago a bear broke into the chicken yard twice to get to the grain but thankfully left the chickens alone. Early last night a fox went through the yard. One of the chickens started going nuts so I went out there and did a lot of hollering to get whatever it was to run away. Then late last night something got into the coop and ate the head off of two of the chickens. Wolf and I swear we heard a third being dragged away but this morning when we got up that third bird was in the driveway scared as hell.
We lost two chickens so now we’re down to four. This makes us sad but it makes us wonder what the hell is going on. The weather has been so weird since January as have the bugs. The mammalian lifeforms have also been more active early in the summer/late in spring. In the nearly 8 years since we moved to HH I’ve never seen the wildlife act like this.
