I've lost it.  I've lost my faith in humanity.  Wednesday evening after Farmer's Market, I came home and was unloading my car in the driveway like I normally do.  I was home alone and heard someone pull up by our adjacent driveway and then I heard the pop of a 22 caliber rifle, with laughing following that.  It's not uncommon around here, unfortunately, for people to drive around and shoot gophers from vehicles on county roads.  Never mind that it's not legal.  In my head I was thinking they were shooting at my wandering chickens.  They are often in the road.  I immediately ran to the road to look and see what was going on.  We have a huge windbreak of trees around the house, so it's impossible to see anything with them all leaved out.  As I approached the road, a green pickup drove past and the passenger looked right at me, still laughing and smiling.  I yelled at them and they sped off, yelling something back.  I tried to get a plate number, but they took off too fast.  I decided not to call the Sheriff's Dept. for various reasons, the biggest being they never can catch the idiots out here anyway.  There's too many roads to take to disappear. 

I looked for dead chickens and saw none, but got a sick feeling that I'd better check on the pigs.  They all seemed to be ok, but Friday morning when I did my chores, one was dead.  I am just sick about it.  I called the Sheriff's Dept. and a deputy came out.  I had to lift the dead pig over the fence and hose it off to look for any possible wounds.  I found what I believe to be an entrance and an exit wound, but without taking the pig to a vet for a cause of death, at my expense, they cannot make a judgement as to if that's what killed it.  What killed the pig was an infection that set in after it was shot.  Her right front shoulder was considerably swollen and the bullet hit there and came out under her chin.  He took pictures, but a lot of good that will do.  We will get no restitution without the vet C.O.D. 

I do believe I know who did it.  I recognized the man.  Yes, a grown man.  One I went to school with.  They can charge him with criminal endangerment and they will get their money, but we are the victims here and get nothing.