Ever since the weasel attack, Art has been leaving the lights on the in the barn and not locking the chickens in coop at night. His thinking is that if the weasel happens to come again, at least the chickens can see and have enough space to run and get away (chickens can't see in the dark). This has been working well, considering we still have all four chickens (three hens and a rooster), but we haven't gotten any eggs since the weasel- not a single one. At first we thought it was because they were traumatized, then we thought it was because they were out of the routine of laying eggs in the coop, but last night Art discovered the reason. An oppossum- as big as a raccoon- has been eating the eggs. He found it inside the barn near the door of the chicken coop and that was the end of the oppossum. We don't have any solid evidence that the oppossum eating the eggs other than previous experiences with them, but I'm hoping when Art comes in tonight he will have two or three eggs for me.

I have maybe six eggs in the fridge right now. Normally I several dozen and am begging people to take them. I have to do a lot of holiday baking over the next week and six eggs just aren't going to cut it; I'm going to have to buy eggs. For the first time in six years. But Art won't let me buy more chickens because of the weasel/raccoon/oppossum problems we've had over the last year so I might be stuck with store-bought. Gross. I don't know how the rest of America can eat store-bought eggs. Probably because they've never had right-from-the-chicken's-butt-fresh eggs.