If you get squeamish with dead stuff . . read no farther. In the past 24 . . probably 30 hours really, I keep wanting to pinch myself to see if this is all real . . it’s almost too much, even for a bull headed, brave girl like me. Actually, I think that spider on Friday was just a few days early because today was probably the day he was really supposed to bite me.
I’m not a quitter. I never give up but . . it wouldn’t take much right now for me to go running somewhere . . anywhere but here. In the grand scheme of life, it’s just been a weird 24 hours and things will hopefully be more normal tomorrow.
It started yesterday when I was headed to the mail box in the RTV. I looked and there was a dead mouse right in the driveway. No apparent injuries. Didn’t appear to have been run over . . just dead. I’m guessing a bird of prey grabbed him and then dropped him.
Mouse
The next 20 or so hours were fairly normal. Til . . I was out in the garden gathering some onions, cilantro and oregano for dinner. Vince came around the corner screaming . . don’t go near the air conditioner . . there’s a rattle snake. I kept listening for a shot and didn’t hear it and didn’t want to go walking up towards the house because I wasn’t sure which direction he was going to shoot. Finally I walked up and peeked around the corner. The snake was curled up next to the wall and he couldn’t get him away from the wall to shoot. I would have shot and worried about fixing the holes later! Vince said “You wouldn’t really have done that, would you?” Oh, yes! Fix holes in a wall or die from a rattlesnake bite? No brainer for me.
He asked me to run get the hoe. I’m not going to say I “ran” but I got the hoe and Vince tried to get him away from the wall but he couldn’t get him away far enough to shoot him so he was able to kill him with the hoe.
Rattlesnake
Yep, our first rattlesnake for the spring/summer. You can bet it won’t be our last. This is the biggest one we’ve found since moving here.
Just after dinner, I asked Vince if he would dump the water in the canner that’s on the porch. I had just told Vince there was a mouse on the outside table this morning. He went to dump the canner and he squealed. Dead mouse in the canner! YUCK!!
We sat back down. I hadn’t even picked up my knitting and the weather alarm went off. They said a severe storm was real close (they didn’t use those exact words!). Vince got up to take the dogs out. I ran to put the chickens up. I had just walked in the house when I heard hail pounding down on the metal roof.
Hail
I’m anxious to see how the solar panels made out. There was quite a bit of hail a bit bigger than a ping pong ball. I’ve seen bigger but never have I seen so much in such a short time.
Hail
I’m betting there are lots of damaged vehicles around this town. The hail that damaged our Honda was a heck of a lot smaller and not nearly as much as we had tonight.
It’s all a bit comical at this point . . I wonder what else can happen and then I’m thankful that there’s never a boring day in my life. I never want boring but maybe just a little less excitement would be nice.
Dottie N. says
I think it’s time to open one of those bottles of wine!
JudyL says
Believe me, I would but for the antibiotics that are in my system for 5 days since I took the last one on Sunday so . . I don’t yet drink wine.
Judy H says
Dead mouse in the canner??? How on earth did that come about??? I know you saw one in the driveway, but that doesn’t explain one in the canner…..I’m lost!!
And I think I’d trash anything I banned in that batch!! Yuck!
Judy Laquidara says
I had taken the jars out but it’s too big for me to lift it with water in it so Vince was going to dump the water. The mouse must have climbed up the canner and fell into the water and drowned. All of the food was out of the canner way before the mouse fell in.
Judy H says
Or maybe he just thought it was in the canner because when he poured it out the mouse was on the driveway? That makes more sense! 🙂
Judy Laquidara says
That old make sense but it’s probably 1/4 mile from where the mouse was in the driveway to where Vince was dumping out the canner.
Susan says
That is a nice sized snake for stew. =) I can’t believe you aren’t going to can it! LOL Scary size, definitely. What a day you had! Never boring over on the Texas Ranch.
Diana in RR,TX says
I have to tell you a funny one that our friends told us about snakes. They were living in South Africa at the time and I guess there is a very poisonous snake there. Our friend’s friend spotted it in the trellis on the side of their garage. She didn’t shoot it, she set fire to the trellis. Needless to say there was quite a bit of damage done to the garage! Yes, the husband was not at all thrilled!
sao in Midlothian (Shirley Albertson Owens) says
Yes, you can never say that you are bored – FOR SURE!
STAY SAFE!
sao in Midlothian, VA
wanda j says
oh my gosh. I hate snakes of all kinds but that one. Well I’d had to change clothes after that encounter for sure. We don’t have them around here to wet I guess. We do have coral snakes ever once should say in a blue moon. But Rattle snakes no way. Make sure you are wearing shoes these days never know what you might encounter in your neck of the woods it looks like.
Sherrill says
WOW, that’s a BIG rattlesnake..YIKES! Hey, at least you guys didn’t get the tornadoes that powered their way through Moore, OK yet again! I was up there two years ago when they came through and I grew up in OKC. Now that is scary!
JudyL says
It is a big rattlesnake. Just a couple of miles north of us, and in town, they didn’t get any hail at all. Yes, I am sorry for those that got the tornadoes but happy we didn’t get them.
Joyce says
Dead mice and snakes! Yuck for sure! I’d be screaming and jumping for sure. We got the hail in Missouri last night too. It actually poured hail for several minutes. It looked like it had snowed when it was done. Crazy! At least we didn’t have any tornados…
Carole says
Thinking back on your post from a couple days ago, are you really REALLY sure that you want to plant an herb garden next to a stone wall? Those slithery nasties love stone walls. The picture of Vince and the snake reminds me of the old days in southern NY. Behind our house was a mountain that was part of the Appalachian Trial and notorious for all the copperheads and rattlers. Each Spring the local newspaper would print a picture(s) of snakes that had been done in proudly displayed on hoes or rakes or sticks like hunting trophies. Then a law was passed that you couldn’t kill them. Hopefully people still did but just didn’t advertise it! When I was probably in my pre-teens, I came home from school one day to a strange sound in the kitchen. Plip, plip, plip … like a little dripping sound. No, the sink was OK. I’m still hearing it but it sounds like it’s near the stove. In the glass percolator (remember them?) on the stove, a teeny little mouse was trying it’s best to not drown in the inch or so of coffee that was still in the pot! I grabbed that pot so fast and ran out the back door with it and threw the contents (and mousie) out into the garden. How I had been brave enough to take the lid off, I don’t know! I did feel bad for the little critter because it was late November and pretty cold and he was so wet. Who knew there were field mice in suburbia?
JudyL says
Pretty much everything around here, including our house and all the walls around flower beds, are stone. The shop is metal and that’s where the snake was yesterday. What we’re going to do is get the flat stones and stand them up . . not have a pile of stones.
Having a snake inside the house in southwest Louisiana wasn’t rare and I think living there so long helped me be able to live with them here.
CheriB says
RE: The picture of the mouse. It looks like a Deer mouse. Deer mice or otherwise know as paramiscus have been known to carry hantavirus, an air borne virus. Use care in cleaning up mouse poop and sweeping.
JudyL says
So, you’re saying we probably shouldn’t cook the mice! 🙂
How on earth am I going to clean my big canner?? Maybe I can convince Vince to do it for me.
Amy (Waunaknit) says
I would have shot and fixed holes later also. Glad everyone made it thru the hail storm.