Spiders and Snakes, Give me a break! (repost)

This isn’t the actual snake skin I found in the feed room, but you get the idea.  The one I found was about 3 and a half feet long.  Long enough to freak me out and impress Mr. P.  Now I know what happened to the mouse problem we had.  I was complaining about the little mice, but now I think I preferred the mice.  At least I saw them and was creeped out.  Seeing a skin and no snake really is MUCH worse.  Who knows which feed sack he’s hiding behind?  or even worse, which feed sack he is IN.  Miss A pointed out that it might be a mother snake.  Oh! Please let it not be a mother snake.  I can’t even let my brain think that for one minute.

And with snake season comes spider season.  The spiders return every summer and take their posts in the barn to help with the fly population.  I’m thankful they eat flies, but still I get all worked up if I walk into their webs when I enter the barn.  ("All worked up" =  the dance I do when taking laundry down under the guard light. )   I have no less than two dozen spiders that look just like the fellow above, on fly patrol.  After the last couple of weeks, we seem to have come to an understanding and they are no longer making their webs directly across my walkway (since I knock down their webs every, single day).  Instead they have moved their webs above my head.  I could squish them, but I really like that they eat flies and they don’t jump, so I let them live.  Any spider that jumps at me is dead.  I cannot deal with jumping insects.  So if you visit the barn at our farm, just don’t look up….unless of course you really like the haunted house look or just love spiders. 
I will say that Mr. C loves to come to the barn at sunrise or even the porch for that matter.  We say we are watching the spiders go to bed, because after a long night of eating they all fix their ragged webs and go to the edge of the web like they are tucking themselves in.  It truly is amazing to watch as long as no spider jumps AND I do not touch any webs.  He also thought the snake skin was the coolest ever and immediately went on a snake hunt.  Me, on the other hand, I just pray daily that I don’t find a snake IN a feed sack.  It just might cause irreversible mental trauma.  (I mean worse than the mental issues I already have with spiders, snakes and bugs.)  Maybe I should teach Mr. C to milk the goats and cow and he can do chores with the snakes and spiders!  Except for the chore part, he’d have a blast. 
Your insectandsnake-aphobic dairy maid,
Mrs. P

Miss Cluck Cluck

Miss Cluck Cluck, our porch chicken

Do you have your own porch chicken?  I highly recommend having one.  They strut their stuff in their fancy bloomers, clucking so gently to add to your porch sitting experience.  They will scratch up your flower beds, keep grasshoppers at bay (thus saving your rose bushes) and eat any stray rabbit feed, if you happen to have rabbits on the porch like I do.  The only problem is that they also leave deposits on your lovely porch, which require lots of daily clean up.
I didn’t set out to get a chicken for my porch.  I mean who would do that, unless it was a resin chicken from Hobby Lobby.  But Grandad has this chicken, (we refer to her as Bloomer Girl) who is timid and afraid of his rooster.  One day, she ran to our house to escape the rooster and she found her oasis, which we refer to as the porch.  So now, regardless of where the other chickens are, she has chosen me and lives on my porch.  We realized a few weeks ago that she isn’t even going to roost in the hen house at night.  We caught her going under our trailer at dusk.  So now we know she isn’t only a porch chicken by day, but by night as well.  I would shoo her away and try to force her back into her flock (well, actually I did try, but it didn’t work), but she is just too cute.  I’m telling you, that fluffy yellow bloomer bottom is just too much!  So since, I can’t seem to get rid of her anyway, I’ll just keep her and try to look on the positive side of things.  Like the fact that organic grasshopper control couldn’t be any cuter! 
So if you don’t mind the daily porch clean up, I highly recommend a porch chicken.  :-b

Blessings,
Mrs. P

Free Homesteading E-Magazine

The Homesteading Community Post

I just enjoyed reading this lovely e-magazine and highly recommend it!  I loved the article on keeping ducks.  It has been many, many years since I have owned ducks.  They were named Calvin and Hobbes and lived behind our little 14 x 48 foot trailer house when we were newlyweds.  You know, back in the good ole days.  It was an impromptu purchase for Easter one year.  I just couldn't resist buying a purple and pink duckling as an Easter gift for Mr. P.  Of course, I bought two because I didn't want lonely ducks!  These ducks were part of the reason we now have a homestead rule of "No new critters, unless their habitat/shed/ barn etc is built and ready to go."  Although I will admit it was many years before we realized that this should be a rule.  We purchased/adopted/ took in many other critters before I came to my senses on that issue.  I bought them and they lived in our tub for a while (can't remember how long, but long enough) and then we purchased them a really fine plastic kiddie pool from Wal-Mart.  Nothing but the best for those ducks!  Sadly, a plastic pool offers no protection from coyote nor the local school bus.  However, had I read this magazine, I could have made them a little pen for almost free.  Of course, then the internet was all but non-existent.  And people still used word processors and typewriters.  And cell phones were as large as a brick.  And gas was a LOT cheaper than it is today.  And we didn't eat a loaf of bread that I didn't make from scratch. And we were very poor because we were both going to college full time.  I guess a lot of things have changed in the 20 plus years since Mr. P and I married.  Where did the time go?  And then again, some things stay the same.  Maybe I should look into getting ducks so the kids can enjoy them as much as we did back then and maybe we can even make them a little pen like in the magazine and I can tell the kids the story of the two ducks I bought for Easter 20 years ago.

Blessings,
Mrs. P