cold weather and foxes

We have had some truly cold weather recently - the duckpond is 10cm thick with ice and the ground has been frozen solid for a couple of weeks. The local foxes have obviously been having a hard time of it too, and with 4 fox-free years of poultry keeping we have been getting complacent.I saw a fox just outside our back door a couple of days ago, sniffing around where we had recently slaughtered a couple of lambs. Pete had buried the remains of the said lambs (heads and skins) in the woodland on our land and yesterday we discovered a large empty pit was all that remained. Also yesterday, one of our Indian runner ducks went AWOL, presumably eaten by a fox.Today, I went out to fed the chickens and ducks and saw a large fox eating another of the chickens, with two more chickens missing. So I'm afraid we have set the fox trap (humane - its a box with a drop-flap) in the woods, baited with the remains of a dead, half eaten, chicken. I don't really have much hope of trapping the fox, as they are too clever for that, but one has to try something. The remaining chooks & ducks have been corralled into the old hangar area, so will no longer be free to wander up into the woods.....

On a happier note; we have started work again in the house - for the first time in nearly 4 years. We have finished the 'pelmet' round the kitchen area. The outside is plasterboard, with a wooden moulding surround, which has been finished using liming wax.
'inside' the kitchen we have used tongue and groove, again finished with liming wax. Gives us a shelf for the jars of dry goods (sugar, pulses, rice etc) and serves to differentiate the kitchen area from the rest of the house.
Future plans include hiding the hood over the stove with a similar construction, then getting on with tongue-and-grooving the rest of the ceiling, using liming wax throughout to keep it light. After THAT lot is done, we will lay the reclaimed oak parquet on the floor of the main house. Should keep us occupied for this year...