Friday, May 8, 2015

At Least I Haven't Seen Any Bears

Yesterday was action-packed.
Okay. For me.
I discovered early in the afternoon that I had forgotten to close the little sliding door which keeps Mama and her babies in the coop and so of course they were out. They seemed fine, scratching under a rosebush nearby but it freaked me out and so I went and cooked their egg and tried to lure them back into the coop but that drew all the rest of the birds, of course, and then I discovered this.


Yeah. Hard to see but yet another oak snake and it was on the fence about two feet away from where the little family had been. I could not get those chicks back into the coop and the damn snake can get in the coop anyway so I was texting Mr. Moon and he couldn't get home and he kept telling me to kill the snake and I just COULD NOT do it, no, I could not, and in all of the excitement, Willy and Lilly were having sex all over the place and Mama and the chicks escaped to the ivy.


I just kept stalking them, trying to figure out how to capture them and those chicks are like popcorn on wheels, forget it. And Mama- well- anything that gets near her babies (including me) gets bowed up on and pecked. The mosquitoes were fierce, I couldn't find the snake and well, it was just a cluster-fuck.

Finally I decided that Mama would take care of her babies herself, I took my mosquito-bitten, thorn-torn hide back to the house and just kept an ear and and eye on the situation. A few hours later they were right by the coop and I got Mama back in with some corn and picked up the babies (they were wedged between a door and the hen-house wall) and threw them in the coop with their mother and that was THAT!

Phew. 

And they are all fine this morning. 

Here's a picture that Lily sent me yesterday from an outing she and the boys took with darling Lenore and her mother to the Jr. Museum.


Those boys are coming over here this afternoon and I need to get to the store. I am out of soy sauce and that will not do. 

Let me just say that there are too many snakes in this yard but that I can't kill any of them. What good would it do anyway? 

All right. That's the news from Lloyd, Florida this morning. 

Happy Friday.

Love...Ms. Moon

14 comments:

  1. That settles it. I'm not moving to Florida.
    You are simply amazing, Mary Moon.

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  2. Ha! Well, all's well that ends well, right? I love the image of Willy and Lily having sex in the middle of the chaos. Hilarious.

    As for the snakes, you're right -- killing them would do no good in the grand scheme of things. I think more would just move in!

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  3. My son has a phobia of snakes which he picked up one summer in florida at his grand aunt's house, when a snake came up through the pipes and was discovered under a pail in the shower with him! He was 8. His dad came to the rescue, but not his mom. I held him and calmed him once he was away from the snake, but honey, I totally get why you can't kill that thing. Besides, it has cousins.

    Speaking of cousins that little girl is going to have it made with those two big strong handsome boys looking out for her! Not being sexist. I'm sure she will look out for them too!

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  4. HA! I keep running in the park and being grateful I don't live where you live. I keep meaning to write a non-Ms. Moon post sometime as well, where I show photos of my park, without snakes, alligators or giant spiders. Maybe I will get around to it someday...

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  5. OMG Ms. Moon - I just Wikipediaed that snake, and just about fainted around the words "venomous" and "viper!" You never mentioned those! And you just calmly photograph them and go in the hen house when they are around. OMG.

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  6. Denise- Well, it is possible to live in places in Florida where things are not quite as wild. And it is also possible to live in places in Florida that make Lloyd look like a gated community.

    Steve Reed- Those ducks were wild with excitement. It was like, "WTF, ducks?"
    You're right about the snakes. There will always be more.

    Angella- Yes. That would create a phobia for sure. ARRGGGGHHHH! Poor baby.
    Lenore has those boys wrapped around her tiny precious finger. And she adores them. As you can tell.

    Mwa- I wish you would post pictures of where you run! I'd love to see it. And that snake is not poisonous. It's just an oak snake. They are good because they eat vermin. They are bad because they think baby chickens are vermin. Plus, they eat eggs! But what can I do? There are an endless supply.

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  7. I live in the suburbs of Orlando, with a little patch of woods behind my house and I always see lots of snakes in the spring. Why there are so many here I have know idea. I have never seen an oak snake here, but I have probably jinxed myself now. We get mostly black racers and very slow moving large red rat snakes. I am always to scared to get close enough to kill them, not that I would since they are not poisonous. I wish they would just stay in the woods. Gail

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  8. I agree. You can't kill all the snakes. It would be nice if you could put the chicks in a snake-proof bubble, though.

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  9. I can barely kill a spider and if I saw a snake I'd be standing on a chair hollering for Mr. Moon. I worry for the chicks but nature is nature and only so much can be done. What does Maurice do when she sees a snake or doesn't she? I actually wish I was brought up with nature because it's so beautiful alas my mother put the fear of everything in me. There is some critter(s) running in my wall and I am scared of whatever that is. For heaven sakes, I am scared of my own shadow. Your descriptions broaden my narrow little city world.

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  10. Quintessential children. Their knees are works of art, worthy of framing.

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  11. Could you not kill the snake because you don't like killing things or because it is a fucking snake?

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  12. I love how you described chicks as popcorn on wheels! And the picture of the three little ones.

    Not so keen on the snake stuff. I do admire you.

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  13. I have not seen a single snake so far this year which I think is rather odd. Maybe they have all moved back to the wild space. I won't kill them either. they keep the rats and mice under control.

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  14. Glad that you didn't kill the snake and that the snake did not kill the babies. Yes, there are a lot of snakes around.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.