Of Coyotes and Chickens

This morning when I woke up (quite late I might add) I looked out to see a coyote in the yard next to the chicken coop. At first I was like, Oh look! A coyote in the yard! But then I was like, What the hell?! There’s a coyote in the yard! Looking at the chickens in the coop! And the chickens are just standing there staring back as if to say, Top O’ the mornin’ to ya! Crazy birds. They weren’t even fazed. The coyote noticed me and stepped back slightly but didn’t start running away until I opened the door to let Lucy, our Great Dane, out to chase her.

All of this got me wondering just what coyotes do for food during the winter. I mean, I know that we don’t have horribly freezing weather (contrary to what we’ve had over the last couple weeks and at least for a few more days) during the winter, but it does seem that most of the wildlife we normally see during the rest of the year is in hiding. It kind of makes me feel bad for the poor coyote just looking for her next meal. At the same time I’m wondering if it is time to predator proof our chicken coop.

Neighbors

Yesterday was probably the oddest day of my life. We actually met neighbors… a lot of them.

Okay, so we had been in our old house for over thirteen years and met two neighbors; the one to our left and the one to our right. That’s about it. Oh sure, we’ve seen others, but as far as having actual conversations, those two are it. Yesterday as my husband and I were unloading yet another load, one of the neighbors a couple houses down from us came up and introduced herself and we struck up a conversation, along with her husband and one of her four kids. Then we took Lucy for a walk. I couldn’t tell you how many people we had to stop and talk to during our short walk around the neighborhood before getting the mail, but I know that everybody was super friendly and practically everyone had dogs and all wanted to say hello to ours. Quite honestly it was rather refreshing to see that neighbors really do exist.

At first I was a little creeped out by it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is going to be nice. Seeing people actually use their front porches, kids riding their bikes with abandon in the middle of the street, coyotes howling at night. Okay, so that last part, while I like the thought of hearing them, does give me some worry about the cats accidentally getting out and the chickens when we move them over tomorrow, but we have a plan to make the coop a little more secure than it is currently. I mean, we built the thing to withstand 200 mile per hour winds and raccoons, not coyotes.

Anyway, I think it will be nice living in an actual neighborhood, one where we can actually walk without fear of getting run over by cars and that actually has sidewalks and streetlights. And so far the people we’ve met have been great, which I was a little worried about. Considering they had their suspicions about the previous tenants being, well, slobs, I know that we will be better neighbors to them. Yes, I think this is exactly what we need at this point in our lives.