(AF) MOVING UPDATE - - Receiving Shots Fired !!!

 Today, something I had suspected came to light, more so than I had even imagined. It appears that my next door neighbors have been shooting at my dogs and things in my yard on a regular basis!

A couple of months ago I discovered that my young dog, Sneezy had a big bloody spot on the end of her tail. I had a hard time getting it to quit bleeding and it has taken a very long time to get it to heal up to the point it doesn't drip blood every time she bumps it on something, as she is so active and kept breaking it back open. It looked like the end of her tail had been shot off! Other than that thought, I just couldn't figure out what had happened to it, but I couldn't imagine that would have happened inside our yard.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. As many of you readers know, I have been making most of the dogs sleep outside right now to guard and protect the property (been having attempted break-ins at the gate and the side yard) and protect the trailer as we pack and load it for moving. When I went outside yesterday morning to tell all my babies good morning, I noticed that Dopey's eye was all swelled up, his eyeball was cocked sideways, and there was a bloody red circle just above his left eye. It looked like a BB hole! I thought maybe he had gotten stung by a wasp, but it was really too big of a hole for even a wasp. I cleaned it up and irrigated it with salt water and watched it closely all day. Fortunately, it improved as the day went on and he didn't have to go to the vet. These pictures were take today, after it had healed up quite a bit. We were so blessed it wasn't any closer to his eye!

Bear with me, here. You might remember we have been dismantling our steel storage building. It is now down to just the floor to be moved. Next to that building, on each side, I had some boxes of assorted dishes and vintage canning jars stored (dragged home from the flea market). With all of the recent heavy rains, the boxes had broken open and the jars and dishes had spilled out. Yesterday evening (Thursday), I picked up all the dishes and jars, shook the mud and dirt out of them, and set them up on the floor of the steel building to dry so I could pack them. The few that were broken I set aside. All that were waiting to dry and be packed were thoroughly looked over and not a one was broken.

 This evening, when Dave and I were packing and loading, I started packing up those dishes. I went to pick up one of the jars and nearly cut myself on the bullet hole in it! (1976 Liberty Bell, vintage quart jar, at that!) The fresh, new slivers of glass are easily seen inside of the jar.
Sometime during the night, or the wee hours of the morning, someone had been shooting into my yard! Now I know what the dogs were so violently barking at most of the night. We figure they had been shooting at the dogs and hit my jar. The only place the shots could have come from was the Phipps' property. Will these people ever leave me alone!?!?!?!? Not even knowing we are leaving, will they quit their bullying and harassments!  This area where the bullet holes were found is just a few feet from the house, and only a few feet from where I sit in the evening to relax a bit and enjoy the stars and lightening bugs.

 We started looking around the whole area to see what else might have been shot. There appears to be BB holes on our dog Dusty, our dog Bubba, more on Sneezy, and in another jar. (Vintage Kerr self-sealing) What was very telling about that jar was that where it had been shot, algae/moss had begun to grow in the point of impact. That means that this has been going on for quite some time! With each of us having 5 acres, there is no reason to be shooting that closely to my house and living space, except for intent to harm. I have to wonder, "Will I be next?"



I am absolutely horrified that my dogs have been going through all of this! How often does this happen when I go in to town for errands? I have literally become a prisoner in my own home! I can't leave for fear one of my babies will be injured, and/or property will be injured/damaged or stolen. More and more I am having to ask people to run my errands for me and pick up my groceries because it is just too dangerous for me to leave my property unattended. Recently, my other next door neighbor (Leroy Hacker) even stood at my gate yelling at me, "You never leave! You are always here! You never leave this place and go anywhere!" (I found that very odd for him to say and it made me wonder why he was wanting me to leave so badly), "I am going to come in your yard and kill all of your dogs. I don't like how many you have!" (And yes, he is close friends with the Phipps') 

What I kept thinking was the strangest tick bites I had ever seen on my dogs, and lots of them (perfectly round sores, but no ticks), now looks to be BB shots! My dogs stay in our tightly fenced yard, never getting out. Some of them are even inside an electric fence on top of this, and the gate stays locked 24-7. The ONLY way my dogs would have gun shot sores/wounds is if someone was shooting them within our own yard! ! ! ! KARMA - wish I could see it when theirs comes, but not badly enough to stay here any longer. . . . . . .

Thank you for reading our post . . stay tuned . . . . and have a FANTASTIC weekend!

(Yes, I bought dirty jars and they got even dirtier in the heavy rains, but they will clean up nicely to use for making candle lanterns)