plein air blog post

Greetings from Upper Jay. I will be your farmer today. Please consider the animals in our story today: fox, hen, bluebird, pig. I am trying to decide how I feel about one of us killing the fox. Today we lost two chickens to a fox.

This is a truly remarkable day, one that ought to be recorded. So a snapshot: at the moment my sturdy beloved is strolling in from afternoon chores. Rain is steady and light, the good soaking we have needed and the Rockwell Kent light we have craved. Last night there was a light frost.

Just after dawn we were awoken by a chicken protesting. I am glad she alerted us before she painlessly died from a broken neck in the fox's jaws. We leaped out of bed, looked out the window. There was a fox, beige and honey colored, smaller then our yellow Lab, a rusty hen limp in its jaws. John & I ran outside, we faced down the fox with our red hen in its face. I figured out later when I cleaned up the bird bodies & feathers that the hens must not have felt a thing. There was no blood, just a very floppy neck and a spew of feathers here & there. I was sure my favorite barred rock, our only one of that breed, was gone due to feather fluff, but John found her later in the day, so she survived the attack. At least two dead birds, if not more. Initially we thought it had been four birds. I am glad it is fewer; there is such a high demand for our eggs.

Beloved walks in from among the fruit trees, under pouffs of golden, pinkish, lilac buds. He hefts his empty pitchfork into its slot on the barn wall. He is aggrieved, under seige. We found our best sow dead this afternoon, no reason why, no blood, no thrashing or extruded body parts. Perhaps she ate a bit of glass from the old midden the pigs are excavating in the pasture. Perhaps she had a heart attack.

So today has been quite an animal day. One healthy, productive, sociable sow dead, the first time something like this has happened to us. She's just laid out there in the straw, facing the wall, as if in a deep comfortable sleep. The carcass will become bear bait in exchange for use of the hunter's large equipment to remove her. I feel sad.

The same-day fox should be shot, said our friend and my beloved agreed. I protested with crossed arms. Beloved glanced at my posture and changed tack, from hellyeah to considering. Hunter told us of another friend and farm-ish competition who had killed a looting fox, had the thing taxidermied in a pose, with a wad of chicken feathers in its mouth, put on display in his living room. These are men I admire greatly. I have a lot to learn and they have a lot to teach.

We are living in the Adirondack State Park, which is maintained by somewhat artificial means. There are very few bears, moose or foxes. Few porcupines, pheasants, wild turkeys, deer, wild birds of prey. Each animal has evolved in relation to certain prey and that prey's food chain. The damage that humans have done to the East coast in a geologic instant has wrecked so much. Old people here recall colder, fiercer times when there were far more animals.

Romantic idealistic farmer, I. How can I justify killing a predator animal? We live in a gigantic, forested state park and a big healthy fox doing its foxy thing can only be a good thing for our ecosystem. More foxes and other predators could be delicately influencing the balance toward more moose, bluebirds, trout and other wildlife. Why should we just just shoot the fox -- surely we can spare a few hens and I would like to think that the fox does not hurt them!

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Mid-July update -- the fox and its buddies have killed more than half our flock and prowls fearlessly through the barnyard at all hours of day. Beloved has tried to shoot it dozens of times but as this is the first time Beloved has hunted anything and he has no inborn sniper talent, he has not hit the fox yet. The borrowed .22 rests in the barn, ready.