Snakes

When we moved here, I was pretty wary of snakes. I made sure my oldest children knew the differences between venomous and non-venemous snakes. I showed them many pictures of copperheads and timber rattlers. And they were instructed to do things like step onto a log and then down, instead of over a log when in the woods, etc. (I didn't want them to surprise a snake and get bit.) I require them to wear tall rubber boots when they are out in the hay field or in the woods, or down on the dam where the snakes like to sun.

So far, we have only seen non-venemous snakes, and a handful of snake skins. We had a giant rat snake coiled around a gutter on the house once, a snake skin hanging from a hole in the stone siding of the house, a snake skin in the loft of the hay barn, snakes sunning on the patio, a snake in the garage, snakes lurking under the paddle boat and slipping into the water when we move it. I've even run over snakes, inadvertently. In fact, I've run over two this week! This is because the roads here are so narrow, the sides overgrown, and the snakes so long that they cover much of the road. 

This morning, when returning from delivering groceries to the elderly with my two oldest, my son cried out as we made our way slowly up our loooong gravel driveway. "There was a snake in that bush!" he said. So I backed up and we got a good look. I'm pretty sure, due to the fact that it was primarily black with regular faint yellow patches, long, and not a pit viper, that it was a black rat snake.  What do you think?

Screen Porch Sanctuary

Life is full, and messy, and chaotic, and stressful theses days. And yet I do not often write in detail about the baby, the kids, my husband's start-up, home education, land maintenance, house work, etc. Recipes, although I seem to cook incessantly, I have only posted a few times. Tutorials and whatnot have barely been touched. Instead a good number of my posts are a sort of introspective meditation. It's odd isn't it? 

I apologize to you for the lack of real insight into my life, for the absence of most of the nitty gritty. You get instead these glimpses of things which I wish to savor, need to process, or feel compelled to record, as if to prove that they are indeed real or really happened. I guess it's often a bit of indulgent escapism here on Blogger. So be it. My life, while full and fruitful, is perhaps tedious and tiresome to most anyway. 

Tonight my husband is gone- again, or maybe- as usual. He left at three in the morning yesterday for New York, followed by Texas. (Yes, I saw him off.) My parents left this morning. They came for a short-notice visit last Thursday evening. My kids are all in their beds now, and I am stealing a few minutes in the screened-in porch. 

A rabbit is busily nibbling grass near the board fence as I type. My oldest son has been repairing a section of it, and he is disappointed that I did not get more fence posts for him today. Goldfinches are twittering and warring in the crabapple branches near me. They were brought hither by the feeder which my oldest daughter hung. The other feeder she made was quickly destroyed by a hungry raccoon. A mockingbird is singing his evening serenade. He sits in the copse of trees that my husband just mowed around this past weekend with the flail mower attachment on his tractor, encircling it in a swath of short grass and dry clippings. 

A catbird is mewing. Bats and swallows are swooping and darting above the hay, catching insects. I see their soaring silhouettes against the patch of sky above the tree line and then they disappear again. A horse is nickering. A cow is lowing. Tree frogs and spring peepers are calling. Dusk is falling.

Last night, sitting up late with my parents, chatting, I saw the first lightning bugs of the season. Perhaps I will see several more in few minutes. We also heard coyotes in the distance. I wonder if I will hear their haunting howls tonight. If I do, it won't be from the porch. I'll be inside soon, tackling dishes, laundry, the messy table and surrounding floor. If my stamina holds up, I'll be correcting school work and writing more lesson plans too. I'll be registering my oldest for sailing and robotics. I'll be answering e-mail and checking Facebook. I'll be planning a gift for someone. I'll be watering the plants. Then I'll be stumbling to bed. But for now, it's stillness and silence in the sanctuary of my screened in porch.