More dispatches from my family back in Illinois. Although this one seems, on the surface, slightly more mundane than the tornados that hit them last year, I think it’s still worth reading:

Such as it is on a farm…  Your father and I were out folding up a tarp from the garden this morning and noticed one of the hens hadn’t gotten inside the coop last night. We went over to let the rest out, opened the door and they were all dead – all 17 of them. A weasel had probably gotten in through a just-large-enough hole in the chicken wire on the door. It had to have climbed up the outside wooden door to a hole in that and then down between the wire door and the wooden one. What a sickening feeling – I know some of you have experienced this grisly scene, too. They were very beautiful birds.

We had ordered 15 chicks from Farm & Fleet and will pick them up the 23rd. So it starts all over again. We aren’t sure the one remaining hen (we should name her Providence) will want to go in the coop tonight. I don’t blame her one bit.

Sorry to share this sad news on a nice spring day.

And so, my family got more chickens. They’ll grow up and make more eggs for them to sell to the local fresh market. Life goes on. I can’t wait to get back to the farm.