No Snakes in the House!

Yesterday, Keith and I were getting ready to go to the T Bones Baseball game, and I stepped into the shower to get the grunge off. 

I heard Keith say in a steady voice: 

"Mary Ann, come here and look at this". 

I called out 

"Keith, I am in the shower", 

I heard him say again: 

"Mary Ann, you MUST come here and look"

So, I got out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and went out into the kitchen, dripping. 

I peeked out the door, to see a big snake slithering away across the porch. 

Keith said:

"I opened the door to go out, and he raised his head on the threshold, and started to come IN". 

Yikes!  

He took several pictures on the porch: 

You can just see the snake along the bottom of the wall, sorry, there are a bunch of tools there right now. 

Here he goes away through the grass, under the car, in the direction of the old henhouse.  It looked like the smaller of the two males, NOT Mr. T, who is truly huge. 

It looked like this one: 

Yes, that's he wound up in the water bowl I keep on top of the closet of the old henhouse.  Chris was quick to see him up there last week, on Wednesday, when it was so hot, when we went in to do chores.  Thank heavens he saw him before I reached for the bowl. 

I have been sleeping with the window in the bedroom cracked and I told Keith that two nights ago, I heard strange noises in the bedroom.  Now I'm shuddering, (laugh).... and wondering. 

This looks like a pretty innocuous stand of weeds outside the goat yard.  I am trying to keep a path through there mowed, so we can get to the mulberries easily, the goats have discovered that they taste good. 

Look what I found behind the weeds! 

13 eggs!

They are going down to the bottom of the pasture for the wild things today.  

I know the snakes are bothering the hens, because they are all looking for a place to lay outside the old henhouse. 

In the meantime, the henspa yard is slowing drying out, now that the ducks have been moved. 

I also am finally ready to write about something that happened a week ago... on Sunday morning that week, I got a call from our neighbor Troy.  

He said there were some folks in his driveway who wanted to talk to us. 

Keith and I both went out. 

It was two families who were looking to buy some chickens, so we sold them six hens and two roosters, two of the little bantams.   They took two beautiful ones, but remember... we had 16 roosters. 

The two families were from Mexico, and only one man and two boys spoke English.  Keith got into conversation with the man while I went with the boys to get the birds.  He was told that the family had a small farm "at home" where they could no longer go... it was too dangerous.  The man said that his boys would be kidnapped and made to work for the drug cartels if they dared visit their home, and they missed it. He was looking for a small place here, and in fact, asked Keith if he would consider selling.  We couldn't imagine what it would be like to be cast out and afraid to come to our own home again. 

The upshot is, with the departure of the six hens, the death of Mabel two weeks ago, and Suzie, the week before, the henspa group has really settled down to a manageable number.  I am getting about 12-15 eggs from there daily, most days. 

We are able to donate 8 dozen per week, and last week also gave 18 to Kathy and 18 to Chris and Hayleigh to take home for themselves, so the reduced numbers have not hurt production. 

It's good to be King. 

I'm trimming in there today, in hopes of reducing some of the muck.  One of you kind commenters said yesterday to put some gravel down, but I think this is a combination of changing out the waterers frequently, and the strong cover of the saplings, so I am going in there today and trimming.  In my muck boots.  

UGH. 

It also rained yesterday, so just imagine the mosquitos.  

The ducks, however, are LOVING it and terrorizing the chickens.