The quick and the dead

It might just be me, but this must be the only country where , as you go about your lawful business, in this case stopping your mad cow hassling walkers (she jumped out and was keen to share their picnic, the fact that they were carrying it in their rucksacks and didn't want to share with a mental bovine was beside the point) that you can observe a large body of armed men suddenly silhouetted against the skyline and advance purposefully towards you and not feel like your world is about to end, take cover and hope that either they pass peacefully or that they don't find you to discuss their political or religious views.

So there I was, unarmed aside from a Nikon and a large number of dogs, and there up on the Bonsai Mountain were at least half a platoon of camouflaged gun toting men advancing on our house. The dogs being the brave sort sought shelter behind me, I stood and watched what was going on. A red streak went left to right, a gun was pointed in its direction, I did clench slightly as its direction was me, the red streak disappeared into the gorse over the brow, two shots, a wave and the men walked on. I did the same, towards the shots as this was home.

A man who looked like a mercenary was stood in our lane, he looked like an extra from Full Metal Jacket who had had a fight with a pirate, all camo, gold teeth and earrings, rifle cradled across his chest.

He pointed to the fence line, a dead adult fox.

"Theres two more up behind the house in that gully bit" pointing over his shoulder with a gloved thumb. He turned and began walking after the others, "We got four so far, this hills crawling with them, don't normally come out this far, we'll be back" and off he went into the sunset. (really he did)

So our birds can sleep safely, or a bit more safely, four less foxes (at least) one was probably the culprit who took a hen this week, in broad daylight. Perhaps two of them were the ones play fighting by our sheep two weeks ago, either way I'm glad they are gone. We are, to say the least, over run by Mr Fox.

Day 17 30 30 lvl 12 outdoor training 13.1km (Jazz, Queen)

Night fighting

Late last night as we did the last checks before bedtime and shut the geese away it was horribly clear that for three, Rupert, Storm and Sunny the walk back to the goose house was the last thing they did. Their bodies were scattered across the Corral OK where they had tried to escape the fox, those that did were in the goose house, the three that didn't testimony to the foxes murderous antics. No sign of fox, except for tracks, and nothing eaten off the dead birds. Why it left them or why it stopped short of killing the remaining birds we can only speculate, maybe Thor came along and frightened the cowardly vermin off. Steps have been taken to try and outwit Mr Fox, hopefully it arrives this weekend, meantime increased patrols armed with a gun are on the agenda.

This massive pile of stone arrived today ready to be turned into a hard floor in the Corral OK. Sunday is going to be a busy day!