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.