Snake Story
Sunny, 77/47, Fair to Fair. Disked and seeded the pastures Saturday inbetween rainstorms. The drought has got me thinking about better pasture management so I don't have the $100/acre expense of pasture renovation with perennials, along with trying to supplement a low hay year with rye. This seeding is for cool season grasses that will do better here in the winter months. I'll try to keep the animals off it in the summer.
This weekend was seeding weekend out on the farm. Our pastures have been reduced to dirt by the drought this year, and I thought I’d get some fall grasses to perk them up, four different kinds to be exact. So, I pulled out the ol hand seeder with the twenty pound holding bag and started to make my laps on my 10 acres(NASCAR had nothing on me this weekend….).
Well, about half way through my first seeding I was just tooling around out of breath thinking about killing the person who suggested I get a hand seeder rather than one of those tractor mounted ones, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. By the slithering I knew it was a snake. By the triangular head, I knew it was a copperhead.
Well getting surprised by a snake sets off a whole bunch of alarms in an old mans system. First is the voice alarm. “Whoa-hoa” is what I would like to think I said, but I think it was more like “eeeeekkkk – shreeeeekkk”. Next my cat-like reflexes sprang into action as I jumped about two inches in the air and about ¾ of an inch sideways. The rest of getting out of the way was me tripping over my feet while spilling seed all over the place ( I think I know where the goats will be grazing the most this fall….). The last alarm which thankfully didn’t go off was my automatic sprinkler system…. But believe me, it was in standby mode!!
My wife heard my manly yells and came over to see what was going on. I told her what happened and I was going to get the shotgun out of the truck. Now this is where the combination of being in the Army, and my hearing got me into trouble. I could have sworn she said the shotgun would make too much noise and I should “just beat it with a ho’….”. Well, trying to pick her up just got me thumped about the face and neck, so I decided to go off to the barn and beat the thing with a shovel.
Two wacks with the shovel got me nothing but two near misses, a broken shovel handle, and one coiled up and mad snake. I told the wife I would do a whole lot better with the shotgun and that if I missed that thing one more time with this now shortened spade, my body would switch from standby mode to activate mode and we’d have a bigger mess on our hands.
Well, nothing like a little birdshot to take care of what I’d been trying to do for the last ten minutes. The rest of the day was spent doing laps again, much more carefully, and mentally moving the tractor mounted seeder way up on the things I need list.
This weekend was seeding weekend out on the farm. Our pastures have been reduced to dirt by the drought this year, and I thought I’d get some fall grasses to perk them up, four different kinds to be exact. So, I pulled out the ol hand seeder with the twenty pound holding bag and started to make my laps on my 10 acres(NASCAR had nothing on me this weekend….).
Well, about half way through my first seeding I was just tooling around out of breath thinking about killing the person who suggested I get a hand seeder rather than one of those tractor mounted ones, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. By the slithering I knew it was a snake. By the triangular head, I knew it was a copperhead.
Well getting surprised by a snake sets off a whole bunch of alarms in an old mans system. First is the voice alarm. “Whoa-hoa” is what I would like to think I said, but I think it was more like “eeeeekkkk – shreeeeekkk”. Next my cat-like reflexes sprang into action as I jumped about two inches in the air and about ¾ of an inch sideways. The rest of getting out of the way was me tripping over my feet while spilling seed all over the place ( I think I know where the goats will be grazing the most this fall….). The last alarm which thankfully didn’t go off was my automatic sprinkler system…. But believe me, it was in standby mode!!
My wife heard my manly yells and came over to see what was going on. I told her what happened and I was going to get the shotgun out of the truck. Now this is where the combination of being in the Army, and my hearing got me into trouble. I could have sworn she said the shotgun would make too much noise and I should “just beat it with a ho’….”. Well, trying to pick her up just got me thumped about the face and neck, so I decided to go off to the barn and beat the thing with a shovel.
Two wacks with the shovel got me nothing but two near misses, a broken shovel handle, and one coiled up and mad snake. I told the wife I would do a whole lot better with the shotgun and that if I missed that thing one more time with this now shortened spade, my body would switch from standby mode to activate mode and we’d have a bigger mess on our hands.
Well, nothing like a little birdshot to take care of what I’d been trying to do for the last ten minutes. The rest of the day was spent doing laps again, much more carefully, and mentally moving the tractor mounted seeder way up on the things I need list.
posted by Brad Bachelor at 6:28 AM
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