A short time later Gary and I were left at home alone. I was supposed to be finishing up my grade 9 correspondence so I could attend Laurelwood Academy in the fall, while Gary was out in the bay working on getting another boom ready for town. It was now well into the summer and I still had not finished my correspondence courses. But every excuse found me out on the boom helping Gary. I had not been out that long on this particular day when I heard a terrible ruckus up in the chicken yard. This bode poorly for the chickens so I jumped into the skiff and headed for the shore.
Even though I had a 22 I grabbed the 12-gauge shotgun the same one that I had dispensed the neighbors cat with, and took off up the hill where the chicken yard was. Rolling along the outside of the fence was a brown ball of fur with a chicken somewhere in the middle. It was hard to separate the one from the other as they tore down the outside of the fence with the loudest squawking you could imagine. Getting closer I was able to take aim at the brown ball of fur. I put the gun to my shoulder and pulled the trigger wishing I had my 22 as I figured the shotgun would finish off both the chicken and the varmint. After the dust settled the chicken flew off badly chewed and a mink lay dead with a hole through it. The chicken survived and was fortunate to have only black powder marks on its feathers, a very fortunate chicken indeed, and a not so fortunate mink. I can’t blame the mink as it needed to eat, but not my chicken.
It wasn’t to long after that, when I disposed of a hawk that had the chickens in an uproar. What I liked about the old 12-gauge shotgun was that I never missed even though I was a poor shot, because with a shotgun all you have to do is aim in the general direction and pull the trigger. That old 12-gauge shotgun was worth its weight in chickens or the neighbor’s dog or cat.
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