Monday, June 8, 2020
As the World Burns
Yesterday I went into the chicken coop to check for eggs and a snake hissed and lunged out of one of the other nesting boxes at me.
WOAH THERE.
Let me tell you how not happy I was about that. SO NOT HAPPY. I hate snakes. Especially being surprised by one in an enclosed space.
I couldn't see it very well, because it retreated back into the box and I didn't have a flashlight. I was pretty sure it was a non-venomous bull snake, though, rather than a rattlesnake. I still retreated, but when I cautiously re-entered a few minutes later with a long stick, it was gone.
There was, however, a dead chick in the coop this morning. Dammit.
Also yesterday, the entire south and east horizons were a wall of smoke.
A wildfire sparked by lightning started just five miles south of us on Saturday, and by yesterday had burned thousands of acres and was threatening the village, along with several ranches in its path. The 30-mile-an-hour winds made it pretty much impossible to control, and I was getting a lot of phone calls from neighbors offering places to stay if we needed to leave, a place for our horse, or just information.
I had a bag packed with clothes and in the van if we needed to leave quickly, but thankfully the wind was in our favor and it never came closer to us.
It is still burning, though, and friends of ours are still re-locating their livestock in case they have to evacuate, so it's not over yet.
I could use a break now, okay, universe? Just . . . just lay off for awhile with the anxiety-inducing situations, please.
Gosh, I looked at the BLM site, and there are some big fires that I wasn't even aware of. Thank you for the awareness. Take care.
ReplyDeleteKaren.
Is there anything you can do about the snake? Part of me wants to invent a gadget, but thousands of generations of people have raised chickens in areas with snakes. I'm sure some of them have had ideas before me.
ReplyDeleteTake care...
ReplyDeletesnakes and fire ...sounds like , hell on wheels.
Two things that scare the crap out of me in one post! Stay vigilent and take care.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand snakes, either.
ReplyDeleteSaying a prayer for you. I hope the fire stays away.
Linda
Drew: There are snake catcher poles that have a kind of noose on one end to grab the snake. We don't have one, but it would have been hard to use in there anyway. The biggest problem in the coop is the lack of space. Can't get at those nesting boxes very easily without just reaching into them. I wasn't too wild about that idea, for obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteOh good lord no, I wasn't talking about *catching* it. I meant something to keep it from getting in to begin with. Any snake bigger around than my thumb, that's his egg now.
DeleteThere are instructions on making and using a snake pole online. Very useful thing. (We used to live in SE AZ.)
ReplyDeleteI have great admiration for you! I can’t believe you actually went back into the coop, I would have been out of there so fast, screaming loud enough to get attention from miles away.
ReplyDeleteI hope and pray the fires are now under control, with no loss of life or property.