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Personal Narrative-The Battle Of Linton Hollow

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I am in mourning and shock. For twenty days, the hen house in my backyard lay under siege in what became known as The Battle of Linton Hollow. Night after night, the chickens cowered in fear as hungry predators circled their coop searching for ways to get at them. By day, my wife and I mended holes in the fencing and set traps, but in the end, there was nothing we could do to save them. It’s hard to admit, but we were simply outwitted by a craftier, more relentless, superior intelligence. The varmints that struck down our chickens one by one could have taught Colonel Sanders a thing or two about “finger licking good.” Once they honed in on the hen house location, and tasted the first chicken, there was no keeping them out of the buffet line. The final casualty count read seven chicken lunches, seven raccoons, and three opossums. Although I would have …show more content…

We did not skimp or plan it that way. In fact, we were excited when we first built the coop; we were proud of our handiwork and thought any chicken would be honored to have such a great place to live. Little did we know varmints were lurking in the shadows licking their lips and laughing at us. However, the twenty day siege taught us a few things about design, and as result, come spring, our backyard chicken coop will undergo major renovations. Galvanized hardware cloth will replace the old 19 gauge chicken wire top to bottom. Rolls of 18 inch galvanized razor wire will cover the top of the coop, and overlapping electric fencing will wrap around the perimeter of the coop and repel onslaughts from the sides. The new design also calls for a four foot wide moat surrounding the enclosure. Of course, both raccoon and opossums are excellent swimmers, but a wet varmint climbing over electrified fencing is about as good as it gets when it comes to turning a hungry determined varmint

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