six birds, no bees, no bear

We’ve seen no trace of the bear since the close encounter I reported in my last post. That may

speak to the power of human urine, or at least the common sense to remove an irresistable

food source.  If there are any of Frank’s honeybees around, they’ve gone rogue.  We noticed

a sizable buzz in the salmonberry bushes yesterday.

Several names for the bear have been submitted.  Summergale suggested “Boo Boo”.  Beanie

heartily endorsed it.  Anonymous sent in “Grendel” and kris sent “yogi”.  Gordon, after being

limited to a few dozen entries, went with “B’rer” to honour our mutual Louisiana roots.  He

(Gordon, that is) started life as a Southern Baptist and now lives in godless Washington, D.C.

You can understand his need for a simpler time.

I had planned to debut the new chickens today, but I’m having trouble downloading their

photos.  In fact, I’m having increasing problems with WordPress, which publishes the blog.

Today, for example, it’s showing many of my most recent posts instead of just the newest

one.  And several viewers have had problems posting comments.

I’m on the lowest level of service from WordPress, so maybe it’s hinting that I need to bump

it up a notch.  At any rate, I’ll sort it out when I get back from town with Jude.  Hopefully, I

can share the new girls with you later today or tomorrow.

Before then, however, I wanted to share that we’ve already lost one of our new charges.

Slinkee killed her yesterday.  We had moved all the hens into the blueberry grove so they’d

stop jumping over Jude’s remay-barriers in the vegetable garden. There’s a 2-metre (6.5 feet)

high fence around it, but she found a hole concealed by a cherry tree.

I was driving a truck full of brush near the grove and saw her crawling on the ground.  I

parked and called Jude over.  By the time we got to her, the hen had died.  Slinkee had bitten

her back, breaking it. This is more aggressive than Slink’s attack last month on Juveli, whom

she killed with a blow from a forepaw.

This is troublesome because we can’t trust Slinkee around the chickens anymore.  Our friend

Lee, who drove up just after the incident, told us that once dogs get a taste of it, they’ll never

stop.  We’re muzzling Slinkee now when she goes out, until we can get the girls secured.  Our

only consolation was that Lee had a nice dinner.