...and another snake episode.......

So on a frantic skip and a hop to the loo the other day, with trousers already at half mast in readiness for the joyful moment of collapse on to the toilet seat, my OH was put into a state of high panic which sent him spinning away in the opposite direction,  complete with arms flailing wildly about his person, in haste to get away from the  snake which, just at the very moment he was going to position himself on the loo, had come out from behind that same loo and was heading  straight towards him on a collision course. To see such a thing at such a delicate moment of loo requirement would send anyone into a state of panic, as I am sure you will agree, and so Lester was receiving of  quite a big panic and was not particularly impressed by  the mirth which cascaded from me when he told me what had happened.

Well, that snake was captured and deceased, the same as was the snake that was lolling about by the doors in the Half Barn workroom but that was only a small one and could be held underneath a bottling jar until my OH could decease that too. But the snake which fell on my head as I walked through the front doors a few weeks ago still lives on, and did not give me a fright because I happened to be half asleep when this episode occurred.

As for the snake in the bathroom episode, we do not know how it got so far in to the house. Snakes around doors, we can understand that, although I did not know that they could climb up walls to sunbathe on ledges over doors, but I do now, so I always look upwards when going through the front door...... just in case. But the bathroom is at the back of the house so goodness knows how it managed to get there. Often times ever since, especially during loo trips at night, thoughts about snakes popping up from somewhere or other will come into the mind, the worst one being one wiggling its way from out of the toilet bowl when I am sitting doing my loo job. This is a time when common sense is hidden behind the fug of sleep.

And we seem to be having a lot of sightings of mice at the moment, who seem to be are quite brazen about being seen, even refusing to budge if we are nearby. Actually, I must correct that..... the mice are being seen by my OH when he is walking between the Tall Barn and the Middle Barn  and normally during the evening milking, when he is carrying the milk pail back to the kitchen, the door of which is at the end of Middle Barn. It is a dark space, make darker by the going to sleep of the day, so I tend to avoid this space at this time of day preferring to use the front door, but if I do feel bold enough to take this short cut to the house I will make much noise with my voice to let any creatures that might be lingering about know that I am coming and would they scamper away somewhere else and not give me a fright. I have made the suggestion to my OH that he also do this, but he doesn't, so that is why he is seeing the mice, and also got a fright the other night when a 'very huge rat'' (his words) crossed his path.

I think the recent appearance of these 'tame' mice, is because my OH has spent the recent weeks getting the old bedding straw  cleared out from the cow pens in the Tall Barn so the cows can start coming in at night. The mice would have had their homes in that bedding, and would have also been used to seeing Lester when he sat on the milking stool milking the cows.

The Tall Barn......all clean and tidy, waiting for the new bedding to be put down, and having a peacefulness which is magical. 

It will take lots of wheelbarrows of straw to fill this space, just as it has taken loads of wheelbarrow trips to dump the old bedding out on to Veg Plots 1, 2, & 3, but the work of doing so has improved the soil in the soil in these areas over the years, which has made this work worthwhile. 

Must be  off to cook some food for my hardworking husband, 

so bye for now. 

Vx