The quick and the dead

With this as our back yard we are blessed.

The hills around our Bonsai Mountain are a great place to be, and foxes love it. Our smallholding is in all the guide books used by foxes

as we provide such a tasty assortment of poultry and are open all hours. They literally amble in from the hillside, choose a tasty looking bird and take off with it. Day or night we have suffered relentless attacks and have lost over a hundred and fifty birds in three years. Turkeys, geese, ducks, hens, cockerels, bantams and even lambs have all fallen prey, culminating with last weeks attack on the hen house where we lost a dozen birds.
First thing this morning as I went about my lawful business by the pigs the last thing I expected to see was a fox. Judging by its reaction the last thing it expected to see was yours truly. For a split second we looked at each other. For once I was quicker than the fox and unusually I had about me the means to deal with foxy so as that split second became whole I was indeed the last thing the fox saw. I took no pleasure in killing it, but felt no sorrow either. Its one less predator on the hill that threatens our poultry and lambs. Some of you reading this will understand, those that don't probably won't have dealt with the aftermath of a fox attack.