Snakes Alive!

The last couple of days, I have been "piddling" on the fence row and trying to get a few other things done around here. Nothing TOO exciting, but at least I AM accomplishing SOMETHING.

Last evening, I was out taking care of a couple of small things on the fence. I turned off the road and into the pasture, when I saw a piece of wood post laying in the road. I stopped the truck and got out to pick it up.

I got out of the pickup and saw something else laying on the ground:



All I had with me was my cell phone for a camera, and it didn't want to work right.
Here we were, a startled snake watching a crazy guy trying to take it's photo....
It lay there, curled up for a good 5 minutes waiting for me to get it over with. The camera FINALLY decided to work, and I got a few so-so photos.

The odd thing was, he tried to bite my foot several times and he even held his tail up and shook it like a rattler. He finally decided that he had had enough and slithered off a few feet and into a hole in the ground. It's good to have his kind around - they eat all kinds of vermin.

He is a "Prairie King Snake".

I also scared the feathers off a hen this morning. She was trying to make a nest in the goat's hay feeder in the barn. When I saw her, she had burrowed into the hay, leaving only about half of her hind end showing. She was busily burrowing away when I leaned over the top of the feeder and said - in a very low, quiet, voice - "What do you think your doing?"

I was only about a foot away from her when she launched into orbit. Feathers and hay everywhere! She squawked all the way back to the hen house! I didn't really mean to scare her THAT bad. She was intent on what she was doing and lost in her own little world. I guess it was a shock when I brought her back to THIS world....

This morning, after the "Milk Maid" got done with her chores, the neighbor came over and cut down a big Elm tree that was near the fence line I am building. It was about 8 feet away, but it was dead. We figured that it would be a good time to fell it, since the fence needs replaced anyway. Better now, then to have it fall on the fence later. There were also a couple of 8" round Mulberry trees that had to go. They were about 2' off the fence.

This area hasn't had much done to it since the 60's. It's pretty overgrown, too. It needed done 25 years ago. It's gonna look TOTALLY different when we get done!