What Happened? Why?

This past weekend Jeff and Joshua solved the mystery of The Great Chicken Escape, only for us to find out this morning that during the night 8 of our chickens died, 11 are missing and 4 were alive.

After Joshua broke the news to us, he and Jeff went to the chicken coop to find out what happened.  No chicken feathers were scattered around and no sign of a struggle.  Therefore, we don't think it was
an animal predator. Jeff inspected the chickens closely and found small holes in the 8 dead chickens.

Why? Why would someone come into our pasture, steal 11 chickens, kill 8 chickens, and leave us 4 chickens! Is this what really happened? We don't know but we can not find another solution.   Who would do such a thing!! And Why?  We have know idea.

Between December and February, we had 3 cows to die. At the time we thought it was from natural causes, but now this makes us wonder what really happened to them.  If someone is determined to kill all of our animals then they only have 4 chickens, a cow and a horse to complete the job.

 What do we do?  As painful as it is, Jeff and I made the decision to give away the chickens and sell the cow and horse.  Yes, there has been many tears in our house today including my own.  You see the cow is mine.  I bottle-fed her and she comes when I call her. Her name is Hershey.  She recognizes my voice and will "moo" at me when I come outside.  I have tried to hold back my emotions today, but as I sit here and type the dam has broken. The tears will not stop.

Tonight, Hershey and the horse, Carmel, are locked in the barn.  Tomorrow, someone is coming to buy Hershey and take her to their farm.  She will be used as a breeding/milk cow.  She will "moo" at another mama and enjoy being petted by other children. Hershey may not ever remember her first family but we will never forget her.  She changed this city girl in ways I never thought possible. What happened to me through this cow has been life-altering.  Hopefully, we will find a home for Carmel very soon and we gave our chickens to someone in our family today.

Why is all of this happening? I don't know what happened or why. In the past, whenever our life has taken a turn down a different road it has always led to one that was better than the one that we left
behind.  As sad as today has been, The Miller's are excited to see what will happen next. Please pray for us as we figure out what road to get on.