Sly Fox!!!!

    I wish I was writing to you on better terms.  However, the loss of ALL but one of our meat birds is the cause.  Three nights ago I was dead asleep and the sound of our lab barking his head off woke me.  I got up and checked our little farm for signs of a thief in human form or animal form.  I saw nothing, went back to sleep only to be woken up again in two hours.
     It was time for my hubby to be off to work so he got in the shower and I took to looking the farm over....again....but this time what I saw alarmed me!!!!!  A fox walking the top of our new pen for our meat birds.  YIKES!!!
The discovery was none to boring.  He had made a mess of the screen on the top and had killed 2 of our meat birds..2!!!!  Now this may not seem like a big deal unless you produce ALL of your own meat.  I was angry and so was hubby.  It was decided that he would pick up a trap on the way home and catch this fox. 
     We baited the trap with one of the dead birds and waited.  However, what awaited me the next morning was anything but exciting.  It was devastating.  The sly fox had returned and ALL but 2 of our birds had been killed.  But the more upsetting part was they left all but 3.  They had been slaughtered and left....wasted.  One of the two surviving birds had 2 broken legs and a massive wound on his back.  He died yesterday.  So now I have 1 meat bird.  Tears almost fill my eyes as I am writing this. 
     It is so very hard homesteading sometimes.  I wonder how people made it when they had only themselves to rely on and God.  I wonder how they looked to Him and called ALL things good when something bad happened.  I do realize that we have a freezer FULL of beef, and deer, and pork and we are taking a hog Wednesday to slaughter too.  So am I disappointed...yes....but I am also blessed.  I may have wanted chicken for dinner, but I guess I will be happy with what I have.  I know that God has a plan in all things, they will work for His good, but the reality is...sometimes life is hard and we don't understand.  That is when we really learn what trust is.