My last blog about getting the first chickens had me thinking to the early days of learning how to take care of them and living in a really country environment.  Change is inevitable, growth is optional and I experienced a lot of changes with living WAY OUT HERE and I had to learn to grow to accept creatures of all varieties sharing my space.

I am not particularly a tough girl.  I mean, I am known to scream if I see a large spider or a snake.  I go deep into the woods to pick blackberries and years back my friend’s dad, Vic, who had a cool homestead said to me as I set out one day with my berry picking gear behind his property, “There is a snake here.  You may see him.” He was right.  On one of my treks to those berry bushes, I ran into that snake.  He was doing his thing and I was doing mine.  I was surprised as he was, I screamed, he raised his head to check me out and slithered away.  No biggie.  I had before and since ran across some snakes while hiking my dogs and picking berries. It happens!   Seeing a snake sunning himself on a log that you HAVE TO CROSS to continue on the trail is a bit scary and having dogs with me who could bark at and agitate the snake is always a little scary, but nothing has ever happened in 25 years of hiking dogs in the wild!  I am grateful. 

Early on at the farm as I was clearing more straw from the chicken house I uncovered a REALLY BIG black snake all coiled up sleeping in the straw.  I froze and my heart went CRAZY.  I backed up and exited immediately and reported to my husband. 

The next day he was sleeping in one of the laying boxes.  I was thinking he was stealing and eating the eggs.  I had heard that could be the case, but it didn’t seem like it.  He was just sleeping there amongst a few eggs.   So I gently closed the laying box and as the chickens will do when I am in their neighborhood, they all came out clucking.  As I gave them some chickie treats, I asked the girls if the snake was bothering them.  They said, “No, mom.  He just lives here too.”  So, I did nothing. 

Then a few days later, I was heading in to the “bee room” where I keep the bee and chicken supplies and all my holiday décor and probably 1000 canning jars.  This room is connected to the hen house and has the door access to the laying boxes.  It is a REALLY cool feature and I always enjoy lifting the lids and seeing where the girls are laying, door #1,2 3 or 4.  Well, as soon as I entered the area I got QUITE a surprise.  I saw what I believed was a TWELVE FOOT LONG BLACK SNAKE literally hanging all around the boxes and across the medicine cabinet.  The former owner had some things in there and I didn’t see any reason to remove it so it stands today and houses a knife and box cutter, dust masks that I use for cleaning the poop up and whatnot.  Anyway, I definitely screamed at the site of that and went RUNNING back to the house.  I told my husband and being an Eagle Scout and not afraid of anything, he went right out to take a look.  He came back a few minutes later and reported it wasn’t a twelve foot snake but TWO 6 foot black snakes MATING.  Oh my goodness!    He said let them finish their business and soon they would be gone.  He was right and soon after all sorts of baby snakes were hanging out around the henhouse. 

Since then though, I have rarely seen the snake family.  I think they have moved on.  I am too much working out there that it must disturb them.   I have unfortunately mowed over a few babies and always feel terrible about that. 

As I dig into the ground to plant herbs and flowers, thin out out bulbs and clear some land for planting, I find tons and tons of worms and the chickens know when momma gets her digging implements out, follow closely.  They can devour those worms like nobody’s business and as long as I have work gloves on, I happily pick those squirmy things up and toss them to the girls.  They actually eat so many bugs and worms (and an occasional mouse) that in summer, they don’t eat much regular chicken food.  They find their own protein sources.   It is so interesting.

We have pretty much eliminated the wasps and hornets that were living in the pole barn and attacking me and most of the animals like groundhogs and skunks stay FAR AWAY as Bandit and Bubba will tussle with them.  The raccoons continue to come at night and we continually set traps.  They like the chicken food too and we have lost chickens to them as well so we have to do what we have to do to keep the flock safe. 

We caught a possum last week and let her go of course.  She just marched on off towards the pond. 

The neighbor farm had a nice gaggle of grey geese who now reside on our pond and as summer is soon coming to a close, we expect the Canadian Geese convention to come soon. 

In late fall at dusk from all different directions for about a week, THOUSANDS of them converge on our 2 acre pond and make quite a racket.  They seem to have a set annual meeting and then head their way south.  It is quite extraordinary and we look forward to it every fall.  I wonder how the grey geese will enjoy all these trespassers this year? 

So, in addition to what I mentioned above, there are our bees of course, the bunnies who eat my strawberries and hop around the property and we hear coyotes at night but we have never actually seen any. The cats do a fair amount of hunting of small game and birds but mostly they just watch all this wildlife.  It is a paradise out here of nature.  I am eternally grateful to live amongst the animals and hope to have more fun tales to relay as the years go by. In the hopes to learn more about insects, I am currently reading this book. Fascinating!