The wee hours of Tuesday morning, i awoke with a start to the sound of animal in distress.  I was outta bed and moving before I was aware of it.  After 15 seconds of investigation and waking up dear AP i had to say “I think that may have been a dream”.  Once settled back in bed another call confirmed that it was not a dream.  Something was in the coop and there was a chicken in serious distress.

This is a re-run for us, not our first rodeo.  Andrew donned eye glasses, a coat, grabbed a flash light and was out the door in a flash.  I suited up and followed him with babe in arm (I woke him up too, unfortunately).  Andrew treed the critter, Liam and I kept it up there while he went for the .22.  It is well hidden and a total pain to get to so it took awhile for him to return.  In that gap I noticed that the moon looked different then the full gleaming moon i’d seen during supper prep.  Was this a lunar eclipse?

Andrew returned and aimed carefully with both the flash light and the little rifle.  He fired one shot and almost immediately came the sound or breaking limbs as the enormous coon fell out of the Ponderosa tree that had been his refuge.

He has killed his last chicken, RIP Scar Face.

Sadly, this was not the first time Scar Face had been attacked by a raccoon.  This is about the second anniversary of the first attack.  That night we disrupted the attack so early that she was saved with just a gnarly scar to show that anything had happened.  Tuesday she was not so lucky.

We did not get the coon that night 2 years ago because the only firearm in the house was a Red Ryder bb gun that did nothing but make the coon sorta mad.  It hissed down at us as Andrew shot it several times (he says 20, I think more like 8 times).  It took a long time for us to give up that night and we both had sore necks from staring up into the tree.  This year’s was a far more satisfying experience.

Back in the house i learned (I love the internets!) that it was a full lunar eclipse.  That darn coon must have waited for the light to go out to sneak into the coop, and we accidentally saw a very spectacular Blood Moon!