Snakes...

Snakes. Something I never really had to deal with before moving here...

In reading my Blogging Diva of the Day (and she really is a Blogging Diva!), I see her home got invaded by a snake yesterday (you'll have to go there to read how she handled it). She doesn't live but a few hours from me...and of course, it brought back memories of my own encounter with the slithery sort earlier this year...

Ugh. I hate snakes. I *know* they serve a purpose in God's creation. I know that they keep the population of rats and mice down (among other things). So generally speaking, as long as they don't bother me, I don't go bothering them. Being out here in the country, anything that keeps the rats and mice from taking over, is good with me. Except....

When they are messing with my chickens. We knew we had at least one of the big black snakes around here--we'd seen it and moved it before. He came back. With his lady friend. And I guess that the eggs were easier targets of opportunity than the mice (let's see. One sits still while you swallow it whole, the other ones run and jump and scamper about...I dunno, which would *I* go for, if I were a snake?). But when I go to open up the coop and let the birds out on a Sunday morning (still in my nightgown, wearing El Husbando's flip flops....and see a big. black. so-fat-he-cannot-get-back-out snake coiled up in our 'broody hen nursery'....with 10 eggs in various spots of his anatomy...no. (Pardon the language) AIN'T NO WAY, HONEY!!!!!! >:-( Yeah.

So I did the "wifely type" thing, and ran and got the still slumbering El Husbando out of bed, informing him "Get your gun, we've got a snake". Well, he did his thing, and I did mine (went in the house and plugged my ears). Turns out we had a big ol' male black snake, who had gotten so fat thanks to my gestating chicks, that he couldn't get back out. Stuck, thanks to an overwhelming appetite for baby chickens. GRRR. Well, we disposed of him (all 6 feet of him), and knew to keep a look-out for her. His lady-friend. The other part of their gruesome twosome. Sure enough, she got caught by yours truly later that same week. In the egg-laying boxes. She had eaten one, but not enough to slow down her escape.

Golly, she was fast. And by fast, I mean FASSSSST. Fortunately for me, she didn't hightail it out of there the minute I saw her. No, she waited til I came back with implements of her destruction. In dispatching her back to her Maker, I learned a few lessons. One, don't try and take on a snake with a pistol. Unless you are a crack shot, and have shot snakes before, you will miss, and waste valuable ammo. Use a big gun. A shot gun, loaded with snake shot (or a grenade launcher. Or a small thermonuclear device. That'd work to clear the area of the slithery social sorts. But it'd also waste the chickens, the cows, the dogs, and possibly even me. Think I'd pass on that last one). Two, use a hoe, not a rake thing. I had a small garden fork. Eventually, she got wrapped around it just the right way that she couldn't slither out of it, and I chopped her in the back of the head with a specialized hoe. El Husbando was at work, and when I told him how I did it, he laughed and asked why I didn't use a regular hoe (I think I was a little over-adrenalized, but hey, I was protecting my girls from the evil machinations of baby eating black skinned slithery monsters). Well, DUH, they were farther away from where I was, and I wanted that thing D-E-A-D!

Now, let me tell you, if I saw one in the house. Oh. My. Word. I think shortly after a small heart attack, and grabbing the dc up and running, I'd be calling El Husbando AND the local PD to come help, cause I have not got a clue. And the neighbors. We've got some not too far away, and hopefully they would be home. And helpful.

But that reminds me. El Husbando has to mow around the house. Weedwhack. What not. SOMETHING. Clear the stuff down, cause I cannot stand the thought...ugh. Now, to get some dry weather, so we can actually do it!

Because, in case you didn't guess, it is gray. Again. The fog rolled in by 6 last night, I thought I was living in the Bay area of California, and while it is less this morning, it certainly isn't better by much. Which means that the grass is wet, and unless I am exceedingly lucky, it will stay that way for a while. All day. And probably tomorrow. There is so much that we need to be doing, but in this weather, it really isn't possible. But if it isn't better by the weekend, he will have to do those things anyway, at least the preliminaries, so I can get to work on the rest.

Now, on to the Diva of the Day...in case you didn't guess, it is...Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. She's getting ready to put out a cookbook (yes, and I've tried her recipes and they are gooood!), and when she isn't dealing with cows on her porch, snakes in the bathroom, and Marlboro Man's forearms, she's homeschooling her four "punks", and playing servant to King Charles the bassett hound. Don't ask me how she finds the time. No. Really. She's like one of those whirligig things you see in folks' yards (they move faster in Oklahoma! ;-) ).

So pop on over, and give her blog a look-see. Go back and read the many chapters of her romance with Marlboro Man (it is good--you need a long time to read it, so schedule it into your dayplanners!).

Hopefully, your day is bright and sunny and warm and dry. And you are getting things done *unlike me*.