Camping, Chickens, CCD, Coop Changes, and a Snake

My creativity has been completely sucked dry lately by another small project, so I'm going to make this another boring old update post.

1. Ethel
Ethel is doing great and has finally moved back in with the other chickens. She is so happy to be back with her friends. You can see the wound on her left thigh is healing still. It gets smaller every day.


2. Bees
Our hives have been doing well, too. We opened the hives to taste the difference in the honey flavor. Our first hive produces a much sweeter honey. The bees are not actually strong enough for us to rob large amounts honey from them. We are looking forward to next summer, when we can bottle some.


This pretty lady fell into the sugar water. She looked just like a cat, cleaning the sticky water off her body.


3. Chicken Coop Renovation
Glenn and my dad opened up and enlarged the coop. Glenn made this cool before and after picture so you can see the changes.




4. We spent a wonderful weekend in the Sierra Nevada Mountains camping a couple of weekends ago. Here are three of my favorite shots from the trip. The adorable boy is my nephew, Reid.



5. CCD is Here! :(
Our neighbors recently lost their hive to (what we think is) Colony Collapse Disorder. One day the bees were a healthy, active group, the next every bee was gone. Being the annoying bee lady that I am, I asked if I could photograph the empty hive. It was really strange, no bees, no honey, no nothing. It was as if the contents had been suctioned out. Beekeepers, do you think this is really CCD?


6. Aracauna Chick
Our friends gave us five Aracauna eggs to put under our broody hen. Only one hatched-isn't she cute? She is now a couple of months old.


7. And a Rattlesnake for Good Measure
Sorry, I didn't want to do this, but I can't help myself. We met this friendly guy on our hike this evening. I promise not to publish a picture of the next rattlesnake I find. I'm done, I swear.

The Dos and Don'ts of Rattlesnake Relocation

Pumpkin tried to attack a rattlesnake last night. Grammy heard him barking frantically then observed him trying to bite a small animal. She promptly pulled Pumpkin off his prey, an adolescent rattlesnake. The snake was pissed off. We watched him carefully as he rattled his tail next to Pumpkin's dog house. There were two sensible options. 1. Kill him. 2. Leave him alone. Kill him was out. We also didn't want to leave him in Pumpkin's enclosure because we knew Pumpkin would be all over him in the morning.

Luckily, we had been drinking wine, which helped us come up with a more creative plan. This is what I learned from my experience last night.

DON'T wear old, baggy jeans for snake removal when your bum could potentially be in all the photographs.

DO put on bee gloves and boots for a false sense of security.
DON'T assume you can lightly nudge a snake and it will crawl into a recycling bin. The snake will quickly crawl under the bin toward your feet.

DO sneak up behind the snake and flick it into the recycling bin.

DON'T drop the bin as you attempt to stand it up. It will make everyone watching you jumpy.

DO make sure your toddler has a healthy fear of rattlesnakes (but don't freak him out too much, snakes are cool).

DO drag the recycling bin as far away as possible from your house.

DON'T do it when the neighbors are watching.

DO let the neighbors know that you have a squirrel in the recycling bin if anyone asks.

DO relax and enjoy another glass of wine knowing that you worked hard to relocate a snake, and put yourself in danger, but the snake will likely be back in the dog's enclosure by morning.

Bear Hunting

I heard there were black bears at our local lake (Santa Margarita Lake). Not a big deal for some people, but for a girl who has only seen two bears in her lifetime, exciting indeed. I got the boys on board, put on my bear hat for good luck and headed out to the lake.

Glenn was leading the way down the trail when we spotting some bushes moving. Several baby quail started running for their mother who was calling for them from a bush closer to the lake. A few more steps and Pumpkin startled three deer, which went bounding into the trees. At this point I realized I needed to be in front to spot the bear. I was NOT going to only get a glimpse of the bear’s tail as it retreated into the trees.

I was happily leading when I looked down and saw this next to my foot. Oliver now knows the meaning of the word “shit.” I actually think I said, “Shit, shit, SHIT, back up, RATTLESNAKE!”

Being the loving wife that I am, I decided Glenn should have the opportunity to experience all of the wildlife first for the rest of the hike. Oliver and I followed behind carefully, eyes glued to the ground.

This hike was incredible in terms of cool animal experiences. Glenn saw a fox (I saw its tail retreating into the trees-go figure), we found a lizard that WASN'T a western fence lizard, a tarantula, turkeys and their poults, a giant dragonfly and a snake skeleton.

Turkeys and their poults

This cute little poult got separted from its mother. They were able to reunite after calling for eachother.

Tarantula!

I have to look up this lizard but I can't find my herp book. Anyone know what it is?

Oliver took this picture of the snake (or lizard?) skeleton and his walking stick.

We returned to the ranger station just as two women were pulling up. “We just had the most amazing bear experience!” “There is a mother and baby bear hanging out and everyone saw it!” “They are right down the road, hurry!” So we jumped into the truck and drove around the lake for another hour. No bear. Was I jealous? Yes, but still happy about all of the other animal encounters. Next week we are waiting in the truck for sure.

Snakiss is Back!

Oliver and Glenn found Snakiss sunning himself in the garden this morning. He quickly retreated back into the original gopher hole when I tried to take a picture of him.


Well, I'm sure you are all sufficiently sick of hearing about our gopher snake. I'm sorry to say I'm sure there will be many more snake posts in the future as the rattle snakes start to come out of hiding.

Snake Update

Look who we found today. When Oliver heard that our snake was out in the garden he made sure to put his snake boots on. We strive for safety in this family. Here is Oliver showing me the snake ("Snakiss").

Otter (our cat) finally noticed Snakiss and jumped a mile in the air. The butterfly, however, appears to be unfazed.

A Snake Saves the Day

We have a gopher in the garden. He has been creating tunnels under our peas and destroying them one by one. The battle between Glenn and the gopher has been intense this week. One could find Glenn in the garden digging up Gopher holes, filling in gopher holes, putting road flare smoke into holes, and even setting our cat over a hole. The gopher has won every battle by digging new tunnels, avoiding the smoke and laughing at our inept cat.

Then this beautiful gopher snake came into our lives. My sister and her family accidently picked up the snake (it climbed under their car and hid for a week) while visiting the Carrizo Plain. My sister gave this wonderful gift to Glenn after she learned of his gopher problems.


Here is a picture of my mom holding the snake. She was the only one brave enough to touch the snake so I could photograph him. I made her wear our bee gloves.

We put the hungry snake into the gopher's most recent hole. So far the snake appears to be winning. We have not lost any vegetables to the gopher in the last twenty four hours. We did, however, lose some trees to deer and have a new bug eating our artichoke plant. And the battle continues....