Easier to read version

Since I've gotten so many emails I'll type out the story that is on the newspaper thingy in my previous post. I hadn't realized that it was so difficult to read.

*On the front page of the "Thompson Times"*
Over the past several days the Thompson's Sandhills Holler has been under attack. The assailants swoop in without warning and have attacked several times daily. The victim count now stands at six, so far though there have been no fatalities. The victim's families remain hopeful for full recoveries.

When interviewed the youngest of the Thompson clan declared war on the culprits of these vicious attacks, and has vowed to stand guard at all times (or at least when Mom lets him). He is so dedicated to the task of protecting the victims that he was awake at 2:00 this morning calling out to the remaining members of the household to guard the victims vigilantly.

Miss Fred Thompson will only state that it is her unshakable opinion that the culprits should be shot and beheaded. She declares that their heads should be mounted on sticks spaced about the perimeter of the area of the attacks to warn other such threats to the safety of the residents of the Sandhills Holler. She also at times ponders what the assailants may taste like slow roasted with onions and garlic.

The eldest Thompson son has taken a firm stance on prayer as the sole solution to the attacks but has yet to offer his opinion on forgiveness of the attackers. He was unavailable for further comment due to his patrol duty.
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I thought it was kind of fun to write a goofy story to blow off some steam after dealing with the hawks for so long. Our little chickens have never ceased to amaze me through the whole thing. We have all learned alot and through it all the kids and I have learned so much.

There was a period of time though that I was very concerned for the kids (the chickens too but mostly the kids). The chickens had been so traumatized that they would only sit so very very still and quiet.....I guess hoping to keep from being noticed and labeled as hawk food. The kids would not leave the chicken pen....they literally wrote out a guard schedule and took turns keeping watch over those chickens. I went out to check on them and saw how they had taken sticks and laid them out as spears to throw at the hawks, they had buckets full of stones and had made slings to hurl them with. I got worried about the stress on the kids because they seemed to be so uninterested in the rest of the world ......no matter what. As time went on that day the kids got more and more quiet as they had chased off hawk after hawk and many times more than one hawk at a time. Their frustration in not being allowed to harm them grew by the minute and they were so irritated by the helplessness of the whole thing The kids stayed out until after dark and came inside looking much like the war weary chickens...it was the quietest suppertime we've ever had. It was that night that Caleb woke us all up shouting at the top of his lungs to get the hawk away from the chickens. I finally had to force the kids to go somewhere away from home and think on other things for an afternoon.....when we came home we worked feverishly to make the chicken pen more secure and tend to the hurt chickens. Thankfully we haven't had a problem since.

The chickens are all looking good now and Harley the super duper tiny biker chicken is doing really good now and is quite happy. We still have some work to do inside the coop to make the chickens more comfortable for winter and hopefully soon they will be secure enough and well enough to start laying me some eggs!