POP GOES THE WEASEL

          Sunday morning rising; the clouds dispersing rapidly as the sun warms the land.  The snow, not much more than just a thin, white mantel remaining, is melting; many newly formed small streams of cloudy water, since the logging next door occurred a short time ago, are draining into the main stream that twists and swirls its way along the base of Green Mountain and then into East Grand Lake at Sandy Beach.  The forest and the barnyard is alive with the sounds of birds just returning from the south.  Although spring is just a short step around the corner, it wouldn't be surprising if winter, in one last desperate stand to hold its relentless, icy clasp, let loose another brutal snow storm.
          Yesterday, while fussing about in the garage, which is attached to the barn and chicken coop, I noticed a clot of insulation drop from a small hole at the edge of the ceiling.  When I looked up to see what had caused the trivial incident, a little white head with roundish ears poked through a little hole - I was staring back at the bane of chicken farmers; the weasel.  These pesky, little varmints can fit through a hole about the size of a 25 cent piece and can clean out a chicken coop in a very short time.  Before I was able to load the .22 and arrived back, the little varmint had disappeared, vamoosed like a thief in the night, which it is.  Wondering if the weasel would attack the chickens, I got myself a chair and sat quietly in the corner of the chicken coop with the .22 ready to do some mortal damage to the wee sucker.  From what I understand about weasels, they generally attack the chickens during the night when they are defenceless but even though it was daylight, I wasn't taking any chances.  It was a good thing too, because it wasn't very long before I saw him sneaking into the chicken coop and making an attack on a chicken I had separated from the rest because it has an injured leg.  Now trying to take a shot at a weasel that's riding a big old hen like a bucking bronco is very difficult.  Luckily, before it could do any serious damage to the chicken, I hadn't closed the door very tight, she lunged with the weasel clinging to her back like a bare-back rodeo-rider, out the door and landed with a thump on the floor, which was about 4' below the cage.  Impossible to take a shot, without most likely hitting one of the chickens that were all going ballistic by this time, I watched the little varmint scurry amongst the stampeding chickens and quickly disappear through a little hole in the wall.
          After placing the injured chicken back in the cage, figure I'd use it for bait, I noticed Jessica and her friend Jamie in the garage.  I was of course quite perturbed that they were there because if I had taken a shot at the weasel, even if I had hit it, chances are the bullet would have gone clean through it because of its small size and then possibly continued through the wall.  Anxious about mistakenly shooting one of the kids, telling them the reason why I was more than a touch angry, I told them to leave.  I then resumed my position of sitting on a chair in the corner of the chicken coop, wondering if the little weasel would make another attempt at killing a chicken.  Unlike other animals that kill chickens and then eat their carcasses, weasels chew the chicken's heads off and suck out the blood like freakin' vampires.  However, in this case, unlike true vampires, hanging garlic around the chicken coop or nailing a silver cross to the door wouldn't have any effect on this little critter.  And then, upon hearing a slight noise, I readied the .22, hoping for a kill shot to the head if it came through the same entrance as before.  However, instead of the weasel; it was Jessica.  Now, for the most part, I'm a pretty easy-going guy but I admit it, I lost my cool and screamed at her to get the hell out of the garage because if the weasel had returned at the same time and I had fired the gun; I don't even want to think about what could have happened then.
          As darkness descended, wondering what I could do about the wee chicken blood-sucker, I decided to leave the light on all night; at least the chickens wouldn't be totally defenceless.  For added protection, much to Finnegan's chagrin, I locked him in the coop with the chickens; apparently a cat will kill a weasel if it can get its claws into one.  When I checked on the chickens this morning, they all seemed to have survived the night and Finnegan was one happy cat to be let out.  Since I can't keep locking the cat up with the chickens during the night, I've decided to install a radio, which I hear is deterring to small varmints and actually enhances chicken productivity in regards to laying eggs.
          The episode with the weasel brings back a memory of an old tune that I heard and used to sing when I was once just a wee boy, "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel.  Round and round and round they went, pop goes the weasel!"  And that's what I wish I could have done yesterday with the weasel; popped the wee varmint with a .22 bullet between his big black, shiny eyes - cheers, eh!