Oh yes, spring time is upon us

At 3 a.m. this morning I woke up with a start because of some screeching. It sounded like screaming, but not. I wasn't sure if it was a bird or a wild animal or a screaming person. I compared notes with Fino and then with each of the girls because everyone was up and looking out a window within seconds of the first screech.

Fino grabbed a flashlight and poked his head out the door to see what was making the noise. We all agreed right off the sound was coming from the area around the chicken coop but couldn't see anything we could identify. That could have been in part because we were all so bleary eyed at being awakened so abruptly. We agreed to chalk it up to "a crazy bird?!"

I posted on my Twitter account about the strange wake up call being our "welcome to spring" alert that predators were coming around the coop again. And then a friend posted a comment in response that she thought it was a fisher cat.

After a quick web search on the sounds fisher cats make, I'm 99.9% sure that's just what we heard.



This also confirms, once again, how useful social networking can be to the average joe/jane who hears weird sounds in the night.

It turns out that it's breeding season for fishers according to the information I read about these animals. So Fino and I will be putting our heads together tonight about options to discourage the fisher cat from a repeat performance. This will likely include borrowing our neighbor's dog to brush her hair outside the coop and encourage her to pee around it because fisher's tend to - not always though - stay clear of a dog's territory.

If you've had fisher issues previously and found a way to discourage them from visiting, let us know. We have some farm animals (pigs and sheep) moving in to our backyard in mid-April and although we have found that the electric fence does deter predators, we'd like to do all we can to ensure a safe backyard experience for all our guys/gals this year.

Speaking of which, L. spent a bit of time introducing her sheep, Midnight Minette, to a halter at the farm yesterday. It was an entertaining hour watching the lamb's reaction to that halter experience - tipping herself over on the ground in refusal to walk with L (next time I will be taking video) - and L. can't wait for her "little lamby" to come live at our house for the spring/summer.

Ahh yes, this all confirms spring is just about here.