When I start looking around the first thing I notice are all the little bowls left about. All types of saucers from plates to potting bases placed by the hand of a child under logs, in unmanned doorways, beneath piles of stacked lumber, any tight spaces she could find.
That might be half the trouble.
In order to lure in the ghost kitten she has unwittingly drawn in a killer:
a large male skunk.
The coop is a disaster.
The yard in disarray.
As I walk beneath them the hens fall down from their night perches high in up in the trees. My presences in the yard brings them fast and hungry but they are reluctant to be penned in. They have seen things.
The skunk has ripped a path through the coop like a tornado through a pillow factory. The death toll is rising. The new rooster, 2 laying hens, 3 juveniles....I worry most about what would happen if the skunk were to take one of the rabbits. It looks like we have a lot of work to do today.
And among the evidence of feathers the ghost kitten came walking. In the last week it has taken up residence inside the fencing of our chicken coop.
Sleeping in the hen house. It eats scraps of onions and dried out edges of uneaten toast. It is skin & bones. No wonder the child feeds it.
It walks cautiously around the hens and the hens ignore it. Not in a nice way, there is something cruel in their refusal to be troubled by the presence of the orphan cat.
It doesn't belong there with them but it is too wild to trust us.
And like any other ghost it is just too scared to move on.
We are setting a live trap.
Beach is hoping for a kitten.
Fisher for a skunk.
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