Skunks and Snakes

This week has been interesting.

One evening about 8:30, while looking for/checking on Anna, I saw two skunks out in the south field behind the house! I went up to the house window and asked Bud to get Anna in the house with Beth, shut the doors, and bring out the shotgun!

I kept my eye on the skunks until he got out there then he focused on one while I continued tracking the other (staying far away!). He quickly took care of business on both! After he scooped them up, and we were walking back to the house, around, and outside the front gate, both girls were watching us carefully. It was so cute. That was the perfect way to introduce Anna to skunks!

On another day, Bud was out clearing cedars from the south/north field fence line and saw a 5' diamondback rattlesnake coming toward him. Actually, the snake was heading for a hole underneath a cedar that Bud was walking toward. Of course, Bud didn't have any type of firearm with him, and the hoe had too short of a handle to tackle the creature with without getting too close. Bud packed it in for the day, came home, and got the tractor ready with the mower. The next morning he began mowing the field! Between constantly filling up a front tire and getting low on diesel, he only got a few passes mowed around the perimeter. This nine acre field takes about 8 hours to mow. He's got about two hours done and will continue once it dries out some.

Yesterday, we received over 2" of blessed slow rain!

This morning, before sunrise, we put the flag out. Fortunately, the spotlight still worked (otherwise, it would not have been flown until daylight). I hope the wind doesn't come up and make us take it down. The Texas State Trooper, who lives along our road to town, had a much heavier flagpole than ours and rarely took his flag down. We had some mighty gusty winds a while back and we saw what happens when you don't take the flag off... their pole just snapped.

Since this is Memorial Day, it was very important to us both to have our flag out. Now, I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will stay up, not only today, but for a long time.