YUCK

I hate snakes and bugs and mice and creepy, crawlies of all types. But sometimes a woman has to do what a woman has to do, especially when her husband works long hours.

This morning, I went into the hen coop with my pitch fork to turn over the hay bedding. I found this next to a nest:



I really do not like snakes. In the wild, I leave them alone and give them plenty of space. I avoid places snakes are likely to be. But when they invade my chicken coops, I shoot first and then figure out whether or not they pose a danger to my kids or animals.

I have seen more snakes in the last month than I have seen since we moved here. Yuck! I'm thinking this one is a rat snake. After shooting it at least 6 times with Gregory's BB gun, it finally looked dead enough to move it. I picked it up with my pitch fork. Gregory decided he wanted the skin. He practically had to fight the chickens for it. We cut off the snake's head and then distracted the chickens by throwing it into the bushes. Gregory wants to make a whip from the snakeskin similiar to one we saw at the Munson Heritage Festival last Fall. Or maybe a snakeskin belt.



Gregory quickly found instructions for cleaning a snake skin on the internet. (You've got to love the internet.) He got his Dad's knives out and went to work. Somehow he conned me into slitting the snake's belly. It wasn't too bad because the snake didn't bleed hardly at all. But it was a bit weird when we found the snake had just devoured 5 mice.



After opening up the snake, Gregory carefully removed the snake skin with a knife. (He is working on the table he constructed a couple of years ago from old fence boards and small trees cut from the property. He's a smart young man.)



He got the skin off, but got a bit confused about the whole scraping thing. So, Gregory rolled up his snake skin, popped it into a baggie and put it in my freezer. I think he is going to try to get some help from his Dad with the rest of the process.

I feel a little weird about having a snake skin in my freezer.

A little more than a decade ago, I gave birth to Gregory in a smaller hospital in Las Vegas. A city. We hired professionals to spray poison all around our home to make sure all unwanted life forms died before getting near to our precious child. I had carefully manicured fingernails, drawers full of make-up and more shoes than could fit into my closet.

What happened?