Point of Entry

     Yesterday we awoke to the signs of death and destruction all over our yard.  Feathers, blood, and chicken wire torn asunder were only a part of it.  The sundial in our rose garden was knocked off its pedestal; one of the compost bins had been overturned, the compost everywhere. Something (more likely, some thingS) had created havoc from one end of our garden to the other and we had slept peacefully through it all.  Scary.
     Our five girls were gone.  The coop is some distance from the house so it is unlikely that their clucks for help would have awakened us.  But, all five?  Look though we did, we could find no evidence that any of them got away or survived.  We can only conclude that it was the work of more than one chicken thief – probably an army of raccoons working in concert.
     The sundial and the compost bin are much closer to the house and both within sight and sound of our bedroom windows.  The sundial is metal, between three and four feet tall, and weighs thirty to forty pounds.  Granted, it fell on the relatively soft earth of the flower bed, but there must have been some noise associated with the disturbance.  A thump?  A grunt?  We doubt that raccoons, even several of them, could have knocked it over.
     And then there was the compost bin…  Larger than a garbage can, it has stood next to its identical twin, unmolested, for ten years.  The havoc looked suspiciously like the work of a bear. And could a bear also have been the sundial culprit?  But why that night?  Chicken thieves and compost marauders all at the same time?  What are the odds?
     It’s already lonely without our girls.  Nyel is working on plans for a new chicken fortification.  I’m thinking about motion detecting lights.  Perhaps by the time Spring chicks are hatching, we’ll be ready…