Until lately, the woods behind my house had always seemed a tranquil place. The kids would play down there for hours when they were small, building forts and damming the stream to make swimming holes. I go down there to walk or to pick mushrooms.
But my view has changed. Those few acres are no longer an enchanted woods. They are a dark and dangerous forest. Wicked, hungry beasts live there.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
I've documented my fondness for chickens. I like having them around. The eggs are nice, but that is only the beginning. I like chickens for the style they bring to my yard in the summer as they move around the meadow, pecking the grass for bugs. Given their appetite for bugs, I will pick up any grub or slug I find while weeding the perennial bed and, at the end of the day, carry the haul down to the chicken coop. When the chickens see me coming, with a coffee can full of bugs, they run to meet me. It is a fine, fine thing when several chickens are so obviously glad to see you.
I like the way chickens make noise in the morning. The way they constantly turn their heads to take in their surroundings. They do it because their eyes are way out there on the side of their heads but whatever the reason, I find it charming and funny.
So ... I love chickens and it does me good to have them around.
But no more.
The first time around, one year ago, my husband and I were awakened in the early morning by horrible noises from the chicken coop. My husband made it down there in time to see a huge raccoon making off with one of my chickens in its jaws.
We hardened the chicken coop and made it all but impossible for the raccoon to get at them at night and we made it through the summer with no more casualties.
So I was confident when I brought five hens and a rooster home last summer and put them to work in the meadow, controlling bugs and looking stylish. For the first couple of weeks, they did a fine job and all was well. Then, a hen went missing. And the next day, the rooster. This happened in broad daylight. No doubt while I was away. Otherwise, I would have heard something.
I called a trapper who said it sounded to him like the work of a fox and he'd be around to investigate. Before that happened, the fox struck again. I know it was a fox because my neighbors reported seeing him. Coming out of the woods I'd thought so enchanted. With nobody home one afternoon, he killed three of the remaining chickens, leaving sad little piles of red feathers around the yard.
We did manage to scare that fox off. And after a few days, I got three new chickens.
But one evening, when I went down to lock them in tight for the night and did a head count, I was short one chicken. There were no piles of feathers. It had been a clean kill.
"Might be an owl," the expert I consulted said. "Or a fisher."
Whatever it was, I hoped it had moved on. And for a day or two, it seemed maybe ...
But then a fisher or owl or fox or raccoon; some predator got another of my chickens and took it away. I gave the last two chickens away the next morning.
So you also won't have to listen to me going on and on about chickens any more. (Apparently there are some people who don't feel as kindly toward them as I do. Hard to imagine...) I am out of the chicken business for good. Too many chicken souls haunting me. And I look at the woods behind my house differently now.
We have a varied and interesting issue for you to enjoy this fall. Turkeys (instead of chickens) and turnips, for instance. And a visit to Chris Kimball's new PBS television studio in Rupert. We also take a look at Hildene's new goat cheese operation and visit with a couple of our favorite local personalities. Enjoy.
