So I’m out on the deck with hubby when he exclaims “Oh! Won’t you look at that!” I look down the outside stairs and there’s a mink, halfway up, staring at me with one paw on the next stair, as if considering whether to keep coming. I growl, he turns tail and runs down the stairs, across the lawn and into the creek, where he disappears, heading downstream.

Concerned for my flock, I pull on my boots and start down the valley, following the creek to the coops. Me and the dogs hang around for a while, fill a few waterers, watch some chicks play, etc., but no mink shows up. After about an hour I head back to the house to grab my phone.

As I cross the bridge leading into the back yard I look up at the deck stairs. That damned mink is half way up again! This time, staring at me off the side of the stairs! I growl, the dogs run, and the mink bolts down the stairs and into the creek again, exactly like before.

I do not know why I growl in these situations, just that it seems appropriate.

“Hmmmm”, hubby says, “S has been hearing scratching above her room (which is under the deck) but nothing getting caught in the rat traps. I wonder if that mink is living between the deck rafters?”

I think he may be right! We might be playing host to a mink den. Oh boy. This could get interesting.