Showing posts with label snakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snakes. Show all posts

Friday, April 21, 2017

Easter 2017

Went to the country last weekend. It was Easter & as it turned out, our first mowing of the year. I got up there on Thursday & decided to go ahead & get a head start on the mowing. Greg came up early on Friday to finish up. In one of our fields there is a new (to us) weed.



It's an ugly little thorny bush that you can't pull up & after it's mowed down it looks like some sort of bird has met it's demise.


My Dad said he hasn't seen it before but it's in almost all the fields. Anybody know what it is?

Update: Thistle! Kill it!

Went out to the garden to open up the shed to let the breeze blow through.


I had left a bag of blood meal in one of the buckets under the back lean to & something must have thought it was food. Doesn't appear they liked it after mauling it, as most of the contents were still intact.


And woo hoo, my asparagus is growing!  I planted 15 crowns & all but 2 are showing signs of life.


Greg had brought a load of compost from the city property & as I was using it to fill in the cinder block holes I looked down & saw this on one of the crowns. A stick was put in by each crown so I could tell where they were located.


Isn't that just the cutest little (& I do mean little) thing?

Had a few minor projects to get done in the barn, like hanging blinds, installing handles & locks on doors, etc. As Greg was walking back & forth from the barn to the house he happened to notice this in the grass right by our steps!




It's a timber/canebreak rattlesnake. He was a young one, just 2 buttons. He was 'relocated'.

The next day this guy came strolling across the field.


Not poisonous but if you get too close he will snap your fingers off. He can reach his neck out several inches, as in 6 or more! He is kind of pretty though. After the photo shoot, we let him meander on his way.

Then also noticed these guys by one of the doors on the house.


Why do they always build their nests in high traffic areas? I let them stay if they are out of the way but these were too close for coming & going comfort. They were 'disposed' of as well.

Sorry this post is such a creepy crawly one but that's sometimes life in the country. Here's a couple of feel good shots to leave you with.




Monday, June 20, 2016

Weekend in the City

We stayed in the City last weekend to get some limbs & bushes trimmed. The weather was perfect but those limbs got bigger & bigger, or seemed to anyway.

We decided to try our hand at grafting again. I wrote about our first experience here:  Plant Experiment. We got 10 plants out of that one & I'm happy to report that 9 are still alive.

We did 20 Loropetalum & 3 Camilias. Hopefully our success rate will be better this time.



As we were cutting back the Loropetalum we ran across this guy:


This blog is turning into a reptilian site. This one was as calm as the other one & only about 1/2 as long & 1/2 as big around. But, with different pattern & coloring. I need to get a snake book to identify what critters we have hanging around.

Rister isn't doing his job very well.


The hawks were very active & screeching at one another for about an hour or so. Then the owls started but it was too dark to get a picture of any of them.


Went to visit FIL after we were done, then came home, gave Nelly a bath, had an adult beverage & ate a steak with a twice baked potato. Overall a very nice weekend with a couple of semi-major projects finished.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Friend or Foe?

This guy was in the bushes at the City House. Right where I have to trudge through to turn on the faucet. He's about 3 or 4 foot long & about as big around as a quarter.



Sunday, January 3, 2016

Cookies, Gates & Snake(s)!

Hope everyone had a great end to 2015. Can't believe this was the 3rd Christmas w/o my sweet niece Brooke. Everyone is moving forward with their lives but it will never be the same. As the saying goes - Life does indeed go on.

I've almost always made cookies to share at Christmas time. I used to take loads & loads to work to place at each coffee station or in each Department. One year we made over 1000! Since I don't work anymore I still found that I wanted to bake the week before Christmas. This was my haul this last year.

Peppermint Bark (new)

Pineapple/Coconut Cheesecake Bars (new) & Lemon Squares

Oatmeal, Sugar, Coconut Meringues & Flourless Chocolate (new)
I had success & failures this year.

Only half of the pan of My Lemon Squares baked. Weird, one end was done & the other completely not done.

It was very humid the day I made the Meringues & they had a hard time drying (usually on a 175 degree setting). I eventually just turned the oven off & left the majority in it to see if they would dry by the morning. I neglected to tell Greg that I had left them in only to come back in the kitchen a while later to him heating the oven (at 350 degrees) for our dinner. We saved most but some were waaaay brown. They are supposed to be just a very light tan.

I always try a couple of new recipes. This year was:

1. Pineapple Cheesecake Bars - good.

2. Peppermint Bark which also was good but way too thick.

3. Flourless Chocolate which turned out ok. I always give a big batch of cookies to a good friend of mine for her large family. She has a daughter with Lime disease & she's trying a gluten free diet to see if that helps w/her symptoms. I wanted her to have something to eat besides bark & meringues so I tried the Flourless chocolate. The first batch (w/o nuts) weren't even close to being done in the time frame the recipe called for so I stuck them back in for 5 more minutes (after sitting out for about 5). They were flat as a flitter but melt in your mouth light & airy. The 2nd batch (1/nuts) rose & cooked just fine but not near as light as the other ones. Hopefully I can reproduce my mistake next year.

I also decided to make homemade Cinnamon Rolls for a select few families to bake on Christmas Morning. I made the icing & gave in a mason jar for them to ice immediately after taking from the oven.

Ready to rise & bake

We celebrated with my family on Christmas Day & then headed to the Country. Note: I only have my Tablet when we are in the Country & I can read blogs & email but have trouble commenting.

We always have some project or another to do since we have the entire week between Christmas & New Years. We were originally going to work on the Garden Shed since it's been in place since Nov. 2013 & still not finished. But since the ground was fairly dry we decided to go ahead & extend our gate instead. We put the poles in the ground on the 27th & came back the next day to add the boards.

Before extensions
After extensions
*** WARNING - If you don't like pics of snakes don't scroll down past this point ***

When I walked out to the edge of the driveway, by the ditch & road to take the above pic, I noticed movement on the ground to my right. It was a small King snake that I thought was shedding it's skin. I ran to get the camera & when I came back I realized it wasn't shedding it's skin .... IT WAS EATING ANOTHER SNAKE! Hopefully a poisonous one! Hubby thought it might have been a Water Moccosin.


Didn't see the head or how much had been eaten already but the eaten snake had to have been almost as long as the King.

Close up.

About 10 minutes later - making progress.

More progress .... that tail was still moving --- ewww!




All done!
You can't tell from the above pic but the tail was sticking out the side of his/her neck & was still moving!

Slithering away ... About 3 foot long
We figured he/she had caught it in the ditch & drug it up to consume. It definitely wasn't there when we started on the gate boards. Gotta love the wildlife. Makes me remember to watch where I'm stepping at all times up there!