After the Annual Invasion of the Asian Ladybug, I was hoping my surprises were over for awhile. Ahhhh…no. I live on a farm now. This is not a life for the faint of heart.
Yesterday started out on a lovely, although somewhat disappointing note. I had every intention of going to church but when I woke up at 10:30, I realized that wasn’t happening. Instead, I cooked a leisurely breakfast of French toast. Gluten free bread is great for this as it has a very dense texture. I had a patty of hot breakfast sausage and fresh ground Starbucks. It was 65° when I carried my meal to the little red bistro table on the front porch. I took my time and relished the warmth of the morning knowing full well we could have snow in a month.
Just as I finished my coffee, a shiny red pickup went up the road at a pretty fair clip. I heard him stop and back up and thought he was going to turn up the driveway. Instead, he stopped, pulled forward, backed up, pulled forward, backed up…all while looking out his window at the road. Curious, I walked off the porch and down to the edge of the road to see what he was up to. He noticed me, smiled, waved and yelled, “Copperhead! It was on its way over to see ya!” With a tip of his hat, Mr. Pickup was gone and I was left staring in disbelief at a mangled mess in the middle of the road in front of the farmhouse. Oh…ick! “Ok…I can do this.” I found a stick, picked up the leftovers of said dead copperhead and tossed it in the brush pile…undoubtedly with several of his living relatives. That is the first snake I have ever seen at the farm since I was a little girl and my grandma killed a six foot black snake in the outhouse. I developed the remarkable ability to avoid emptying my bladder for an entire weekend after that. At least…not in an outhouse!
I put out straw bales on the porch yesterday with blankets over them to keep the kitties warm over the winter. I swept 500 ladybugs off the porch and the front of the house. And I set up a driveway alarm to let me know when a car comes up the drive. I can’t hear anyone till they set foot on the porch and it startles me. Now I get to hear every deer that walks up the driveway at 2:00 in the morning. Brilliant. There isn’t a setting labeled ‘car’ vs. ‘deer’. I checked.
So, where “snake” hadn’t been on my radar, now I wear my rain boots to check the mail…even when it’s not raining. And, I also know why grandma carried a hoe everywhere with her. We always thought she was just crazy about weeding. Turns out, a good sharp hoe can dispatch a copperhead nearly as fast as a pickup truck if you don’t mind getting up close and personal. Good golly…fleas in the basement, spiders in the laundry (safety tip…do NOT leave your underwear on the bathroom floor on a farm! Just sayin’!), possums in the cat food, roving nocturnal deer setting off alarms in the middle of the night, raccoons in the trash, and now copperheads facing down pickup trucks. Nope…this life ain’t for sissies. Not by a long shot!
❤️
“they help each other and say to their companions, “Be strong!””
Isaiah 41:6 NIV