Grandpa's Black Rat Snake

Got the latest issue of Countryside in the mail today.  Looks like a lot of good reading!  I love this magazine.  I was a little disappointed, I admit, to find that something I submitted wasn't printed, but I'll get over it.  They have so many readers with so much to share!  Mine wasn't so much useful as an interesting tale.  Anyway, I'll post the story here to give you something to read while I'm off this week reading my beloved magazine...  =)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The article in the Nov/Dec issue regarding black snakes brings to mind a story my grandpa told me about one of his many critter and homesteading adventures.

My grandpa was one of those rare birds, a native Floridian, a genuine cracker, born and raised in the woods and swamps around Sarasota. (His alligator hunting stories are for another time!) After years in the military and losing his first wife, with his children grown and starting their own families, he remarried and settled down in a small town in Missouri. They were typical homesteaders I guess, with goats, chickens, ticks, and a big garden. Only it wasn't a "movement" then, just what sensible, country-loving people did. Your grandparents were about the same, right?

Grandpa and Granny Bea used plastic eggs for awhile in their chicken coop to encourage their hens to use the nest boxes. I've not heard of that practice since and wonder if people still do it. Apparently it worked. However, it turns out it was rather rough on egg-loving snakes!

One day Grandpa went to out to tend the chickens and found a large black rat snake in the coop. The poor thing had swallowed one plastic egg, crept through a knothole in the wooden partition between nests and swallowed another plastic egg. Being unable to crush and regurgitate the shell as with real eggs, the snake was stuck fast in this board, with a plastic bump on either side! I'm sure Grandpa was doubled over in stitches laughing at this unsuspecting reptile. He cut the board to free the critter, but I'm not sure what became of Mr. Snake after that. I imagine he simply regurgitated the eggs and went on his way. Wonder if he ever ate eggs again!

I'm now blessed myself, by my heavenly Father, to live in a small town in Missouri with my husband and six children. We are a few years into that homesteading dream that all of us Countryside readers seem to share. My grandpa returned from FL a couple years ago and my children got to know him and hear some of his stories for themselves. He was just as excited as they were when we raised our first chicks, put in our first real garden, and brought home our first goats. He passed away a few months after moving here and missed our first spring kidding. What an ache in my heart not to be able to share those adventures with him! How he would have loved to hear about my helping deliver our first goat kid and the antics I went through trying to milk that first cranky old nanny, having never milked before. Her favorite trick, once we got the kicking under control, was sitting down when I tried to milk her. Grandpa is one of the few in my life who would appreciate the valuable lessons I learned with that ornery goat!

There's so much to do and to learn in this homesteading thing. If you have anyone in your life who has any kind of experience, cherish it! Make use of it! I feel like I have so much to learn and fear I'll have to learn it all from books. In classic back-to-the-lander fashion I butchered my first chicken with a knife in one hand and the Encyclopedia of Country Living in the other. (My 10 year old daughter, reading this, protests, "You did not! I had to hold it for you!" True. Maybe someone should market something like a music stand to hold instructional literature for us ignorant DIYers.) Yet, I'm thankful for the little bit of sensible country blood I have and that I didn't have to start completely from scratch. Also, the creator of all things has helped out. You'd be surprised how much practical animal husbandry and gardening wisdom the Bible contains. Here's to the dream! Remember, this may be new to us, but it's not new.