It’s been a week of ups and downs in my neck of the woods. We got the garden tilled and dug in some mulch, too. We figured the extra organic matter would help with drainage and slowly break down, adding nutrients over time. The Engineer was tickled pink because he got to use the tiller attachment he recently bought for his favorite toy, an old Allis Chalmers 916H.

It did a pretty great job, too. Even with our drainage issues, I can see how much our soil has improved since we started no-dig gardening. Well, we’ve decided to call it till-as-needed-but-mostly-no-dig gardening in our case.

I can finally get my summer crops in.

Living close to the creek, I’m finding myself up close and personal with nature again. If you recall, I already found kittens in the shrub by the back patio, thanks to a feral mama cat. Another wild mama came to visit this week. Well, there were three of them, actually.

I was sitting in the living room working on an article (with one of the aforementioned kittens sleeping on my chest) when I heard the strangest sound coming from the open window facing the back patio. My thought was, “What is in my bushes now?”

Ah, yes, it’s time to lay eggs.

She was adamant about finding the right spot. I was adamant that my stone patio was not it. So, she settled on my gravel driveway on the other side of the house instead. (Sigh.) A second snapping turtle showed up the next day and made a nest in the middle of the yard. And a third made another nest in the driveway.

The next morning, I woke up and looked out the window to see that the yard nest had been dug up. All the eggs had been eaten, and empty shells lay strewn across the lawn. The same fate was suffered by the driveway nests.

I felt for those hard-shelled mamas.

A day later, while I was over at the Engineer’s, we lost my sweet chicken, Purl, to a fox. Fifteen minutes after Andy had let the girls out to free-range, I walked by the great room window and did a double-take – a trail of white and gray feathers all over the yard. It took a moment to register what I was seeing, but when I realized it was feathers, I ran out into the rain, calling to the Engineer over my shoulder.

We searched for Purl, checked the coop where five of the other girls had come to hide and realized we were still one chicken short. We found her in the woods and convinced her to come into the run, where we locked everyone up safely.

I raised little Purl from a hatchling; my heart hurt like a mama’s. But we’ve always known, living where we do, that losing a chicken to the local wildlife was a ‘when scenario, not an ‘if.’