Excitement in the Pasture

The children and I were excited to get out in the pasture to pull more pigweed a few days ago.  Excited?  Yes, not because we love pulling pigweed (I'd be happy to never see another pigweed for all. my. remaining. days!), but because we now are working with a deadline. {she says mysteriously}

We were so anxious to get out there and get our work done that we skipped the homeschool group get-together at the park, and instead we all headed out to the pasture.

Even BeBe came out to the pasture to "help"

BeBe has been MIA for about 3 months now: Black Dog + Summer in the Deep South = She has been hiding in a pit she dug under our (empty) chicken coop, only making brief appearances to eat and drink a little.  Smart girl.

Turns out it would have been safer for all of us to go play at the park.  

A few minutes into the work, I spotted a slithering tail.  Thankfully it was slithering away from me.

I yelled "snake!"

By the time I turned around (one second later), Elisabeth had already jumped/run 50 feet away.  That girl can move when properly motivated.  

She volunteered to run fetch a shovel.

I was - praise the Lord! - able to keep an eye on the snake while E got the shovel.  If it had slithered away out of sight, we just would have been done out there.  Period.

Once E brought the shovel back, I...ummmmm....dispatched with the snake.

It was an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake.  Not big, thankfully.  But big enough, thankyouverymuch.

When I talked to my friend Teresa later in the day, and texted her a picture of our excitement, she called me immediately to discuss some important matters.  Did I know that we could eat it?  No...but no thank you.  Then she let me know that we could - fairly easily - keep the skin.  Jas was away on a men's retreat with our church, so I told her we couldn't do that (**I** wasn't going to do that).  Teresa then advised me that we could freeze the snake, so that we could work on the snake skin later, when Jas was home.

We forgot to tell Jas what was in the freezer.  We didn't do that on purpose...but it was quite funny when he found a little "surprise" in the freezer a couple days later!


Sorry, Daddy!  (or not)