Tuesday
evening:
I have
seen some snakes this year, no surprise, look at where I live. But the last
couple weeks they have been attempting to come inside the house--well, at least
one succeeded making it into the den. We are not sure if it was a small Black
or a medium Cottonmouth; we are hoping it is a Black snake; either will kill
rodents but the Black is not poisonous. Unfortunately, we both think we saw
markings that a Black snake does not have. I never got a good look at its head
but after the mild confusion of trying to get it back outside (we failed) Ron
said he thought it was a young Copperhead. I told him it wasn't, it was too
dark, he mentioned the markings he saw and he thought Copperheads were darker
when young. Nope. I mentioned that if it had markings it was probably a
Cottonmouth. He had a sick look so I dropped it and haven't mentioned it again.
He has issues with snakes, they scare him. He has gotten much better since we
moved here, doesn't totally freak out, just a little freaked out and so instead
of running from them he will actually go toward them--to attempt to kill, but
not always by the best method or with clear head. He was going to break my nest
box all to pieces to get that one big Black in the coop a couple months ago.
This one that got into the den he went to stomp it, did stomp it. Oh good, piss
it off and scare it. It started back behind some things near the door and I
grabbed its tail, pulled it out but the door wasn't opened far enough so I had
to let go so as not to gget bit, reached for the door and He pulled me back
almost hard enough to land on my butt and started stomping again. There went
the snake into the mess of tool boxes, folding chairs, air compressor, garden
stuff, essentially into a place that we have no chance of finding it. Ron swore
he didn't freak out, sure he didn't. To be fair, a few hours later he did admit
to being a little freaked. That was about 5 days ago. Last evening, Mac, my cat
alerted me to a snake at the door, this time it was a Copperhead, no doubt about
it. The door was only opened about 6 inches when Mac pointed out I needed to
look out the door. We have a beaded curtain covering that door too so we can
leave the door open without hummingbirds coming in; when I pulled the door open
it made the bead curtain move and the Copperhead struck at it. This put me in
an awkward position of having a mad snake between me and a good tool to get it.
There was a big sledge hammer right in the doorway so I grabbed it and whacked
that snake as it was making a second draw. I broke its back about 8 inches
behind its head. It tried to go away at that point but couldn't get its back
part to help propel it. Since it was now faced away from me I could step past
it and get a shovel. I separated its head from body at that point and took it
to the fire pit (after waking Ron from his nap to brag a bit).
Time to
close the coop and take care of that huge walkingstick that has just come in…
I'm back.
The walkingstick is on the oak tree and I saw no snakes in the coop, need to
check nightly at this time of year. I bet there are a lot of mice about this
year and they will all be headed for the indoors for what feels like is going
to be a cold winter for here. But the weather has been a bit whacky so there is
no telling. The amount of water we got in August was incredible--no one has
seen an August like this in memory. Now Colorado has been getting hit bad; some
places have had a years worth of water in a matter of a week. The Ozarks are
capable of handling a lot more water than the Rockies. Their years worth is
only a few months worth here. I think I heard today New Mexico has flooding
also. When our rain stopped, it stopped. We had rain on Aug. 10th and then
yesterday we finally got a little, 36 days with no rain. That is as odd as a
bunch in August.
The garden
is not great but not horrid either. I am just happy we have something as with
my surgery happening at planting time and the floods taking out some of it.
I have
rediscovered a band from my youth, The Scorpions. And it is not just listening
to their old music, they have been putting out albums all along, I just let
life get in the way of listening to new music. Well, it is not like we get
radio reception her very well, a couple stations and neither are good in my
opinion. Ron used to talk about hooking the stereo to the TV antenna but we
have not yet gotten around to it. Anyway, Morg has been experimenting with
music some and a couple of her favorites claimed inspiration from some of the
groups I listened to at her age, such as The Boomtown Rats, and The Beatles, of
course, but she has been listening to Beatles her whole life. For last
Christmas I got her a few CDs I used to have as vinyl. She loved them. I had to
make her promise not to let her dad hear her playing one of them as he wouldn't
understand it; it was The Dead Kennedys if you have interest in knowing. A
couple months later he busted me playing it in the car, he didn't understand
it. Morg got a good laugh. But, now she has complete faith in music I say is
good. I had her listen to one of the newer Scorpions albums, from 2007, that I
had just found on YouTube. It is called Humanity: Hour 1. She fell in love with
it. She is a little rebel at heart. There is another album they had done a few
years before that one, it has a song on it called Priscilla. I was listening to
it for the first time, headphones on. Ron asks me "What's the
matter?" I guess I had a funny expression on my face. I told him that I
had listened to over two decades of Scorpions music ('72-'95), I grew up
listening to them. For all there very heavy metal sound The Scorpions never
sang in favor of violence; it was always a message of love, universal love of
humanity and the world -- (okay, their music had a lot of sex, drugs and rock
'n roll themes too but that was the times) -- and the guy just was singing to
Priscilla that tonight he was going to kill her. I found that a little
confusing and listened to the rest of it. Toward the end he tells us that
Priscilla is a cockroach. It put a whole new light on the song. I can't ever
remember laughing at a Scorpions song
before, they are not generally funny. That one is. I can just see a handful of
half-drunk middle aged men trying to kill a big fat cockroach in the kitchen.
Ron came
in a few minutes ago and said there is a big ol' pile of snake poop on the
front step. I don't know what to say. It is a snakey autumn. I can't say it has
been this bad before.
I took
another break from writing a bit ago to play our night game of dice. You didn't
even notice I bet, it was during the Priscilla story. But now it is getting
late and I have to go, probably rambled too much anyway.
