Missing Chickens & A Total Lunar Eclipse

So this weekend we came to the realization that Brody is NOT a very good guard dog. My neighbor has a pen full of chickens that he raises. He had12. Brody's boundary does not reach the chicken pen (Brody has a wireless electronic fence to stay inside of), but he can see and monitor the chicken pen from his boundary. It's not too far. This weekend I was out one morning watering the grass (like a good domestic wife) when my neighbor had asked if I had seen his chickens. I hadn't. The gate was open to the pen, and only 2 of the twelve chickens were inside the pen, huddling inside the hen house. So I began to help him search for them, and we found several piles of black chicken feathers laying near the pen. Something had opened the gate, gotten into the pen, and taken the chickens. It was a sad realization. A fox? A raccoon? A porcupine? We couldn't find any tracks, because the ground was too hard, but it was something smart enough to open the gate. It was sad. My neighbor's face said it all. It was same look of disappointment and sadness that he had when we told him that our previous dog, Sachi, had disappeared. (Sachi was very good friends with my neighbor, she would go and visit him, and he would let her into his house, and she would lay on his recliner) So we parted ways, and continued about our day. My heart was sad for him all day. He was so proud of his chickens. Later that evening he came over, and told us that the chickens came back--all but one. (the pile of feathers). Whatever had gotten into the pen, chased them all around, and out of the pen, catching just one chicken. So the chickens wandered around all day, but eventually found their way home. And Brody? He's not a good guard dog. He slept through the whole thing. The whole thing.

Did anyone catch the lunar eclipse last night? Joel and I did. We parked the truck outside, positioned it to see the moon, put an air mattress in the bed of the truck, and sleeping bags on the air mattress. We slept outside last night (we live outside city limits) and watched the lunar eclipse. It turned out to be such a nice clear night, with a gentle breeze, despite the forecast of rain and cloudy skies. The crickets were chirping, and the coyotes howled in the distance (and of course Brody howled back). Then moon was so bright and full that it illuminated the night sky as well as the night scenery, but it did make it difficult to fall asleep. It felt like someone was pointing a flashlight in your face as you were trying to sleep. I set the alarm on my cell phone to go off at certain points during the eclipse so we could watch it (like when it started, when the shadows moved over the moon, when it was the covering the moon), which turned out to be beneficial, because we kept falling asleep. We were able to catch some of the cool parts, like when the moon turned and orange-y color, and certain parts of the shadow over the moon. Originally I planned on photographing the event, but by the time anything significant was happening, I was way too tired to pull out my camera (even though it was right next to my head)...I was doing good just to open my eyes and see the moon. We woke up just before dawn this morning and came back into the house to continue sleeping...plus we could hear people in their cars heading to work, and the mosquitoes were starting to come out. This morning I asked Joel if he remembered seeing the eclipse last night. His answer? No. Ha ha.