A Snake in the Grass

It was actually the biggest snake I have seen living in Wisconsin.  That's not saying much, but by local standards, it was big.

The dogs are not accustomed to interacting with snakes, either as something to be avoided or as prey.  It doesn't smell like a rodent.  More importantly, it doesn't move like a rodent.  It does not have a neck, at least not in the same fashion that a rodent has a neck.  In the video below you can see how perplexed the dogs are, well, except for Stoic.

I rescued it from the dogs on two occasions but it kept on moving toward the house, and Stoic kept on finding it.  I am sorry to report that he did eventually kill it, still, little snake, I did all I could.

The Way it Wants to Split

I started splitting firewood in high school.  At the time I preferred the biggest splitting sledge money could buy.  I still own that sledge actually.  I use it to drive the wedge when really large logs need a little extra help to make the first break.  Well, that and to keep the garage door shut now during those expanses of time when the latch is broke.

There is wisdom, life skills if you like, to be found in the wood pile.  Life gives us a lot of problems.  Some we choose for ourselves in the forms of hobbies.  Some come as unexpected consequences of choices we make.  Some fall to us as fate.  However they come, there is no keeping them out.

The wood pile taught me that the first question I should ask, when faced with a problem is the same that I ask when confronted by a thick disc of wet oak, "How does it want to split?"  How does the problem want to be solved?  What does the lay of the grain tell you about the simplest manner to turn the disc into wedges?

When I was seventeen I was happy to confront every problem with determination, muscle, and the biggest sledge money could buy.  Now I prefer small light splitting ax and little insight informed by experience.  Both will get the job done, but the latter requires a smaller dose of ibuprofen when the day is done.

How she wants to split.

Lambing Season

She is the smallest live birth we've had in many years.  Hours old and she knows to shelter from the wind in the lee of mother's flank.

And I've been Blaming the Kids

About ten minutes after running the swifter over the floor, the terrier wants to come in looking like this.

How the Hell did she even pick up that much litter?

Neither of us enjoyed the process of brushing off the dirt before she came in and nuzzled her way under the covers on my bed for her mid-morning nap.

Compost Surprise

I've been known to throw a bit of anything vaguely appropriate into piles of composting manure: charred pieces of wood, bits of mineral block, bones.  The basic idea being, given enough time the bacteria and fungus will break it down and make it available for use by some future plant.

I also create more compost than I use as soil.  Consequently, I have time to let those solid pieces sit and break down.  If I start a new pile it is with the knowledge that I may never see the bottom of it again.  It is a good problem to have.

Every spring I send about four to eight feed sacks worth of aged compost home with my Mom for Mother's Day.  With the early spring, I sent it home with her this past weekend.  This year I was a little surprised by what I found.

Is it goat, sheep or deer?  Odds are sheep, though thinking about the age of this particular pile of rabbit manure, it could have been any of them.

I put a shovel of dirt back on top of it.  Young rabbits will be in the cage above it and adding strata of excrement to the topsoil soon enough.  Maybe it'll surprise me again in another few years or maybe it will have returned to dust before shovel goes that deep again?

Oak Wilt Casualties

An oak tree died next to the house, it looked like oak wilt.

Oak wilt spread through the roots from one tree to the next.  Since there was another oak right next to it, and it could be brought down at 20% the cost of the first due since it could be dropped in one piece as opposed to brought down branch by branch,

Now I have a mess to clean up, but we won't have to carry wood very far to get it in the woodshed.

Before

Almost done.

Complete

Missing Chicken Found

A chicken went missing.

The man pup found it in the pasture, about 100 yards away and just over the hill.  Only one was missing so I would guess the culprit was a hawk.

Still, cool remains.