Farm Adventure...

We have been very hot, humid and a good thing , dry.  I prefer dry over the wet horrible summer we had last year.  Parasites have not been to bad and the goat herd and sheep flock are holding their own.

Our new puppy, Lucy is doing well and fitting into the grove of the farm.  She is half Anatolian and half Pyrenees.  She is shorter haired with a wide broad head.  She likes to sit in the water trough and is usually muddy.  She is good with chickens, goats, sheep, but does want to mess with those cats.  Even when she gets slapped by a paw full of claws.  Have had to fuss at her several times to leave the cat alone, she is not a toy. 

All the lambs are weaned and have some of them in the Pecan Orchard under a  tree.  The last of the lambs are all sired by Trump and he throws mostly Moorit (brown) lambs.  A lot of them were solid morrit and just one or two gray morrit.  The picture to the right are a couple of lambs, the ewe (left) is out of a yearling and the ram (right) is out of Valarie.
With the heat indexes in the 105 to 110 range, I have the lambs in the shade until it cools down a bit.

Had a bit of an adventure when I opened a chicken coup door to find a snake looking at me. I jumped back, and saw the color and knew it was not one of the green snakes we had seen in the past and it had a color pattern & was brown & gray.  Well, I ran to the feed room for my shovel collection and called to Mr Paul to get the shepard's crook.  I thought it was a Cotton Mouth... but any snake is guilty of being poisenous until proven otherwise and that is usually post mortem.  Needless to say, the shovel is my weapon of choice, long handles, wide surface are for chopping and the added broad blade in case of a strike.  The picture to the left is the severed head, yes it is gross, but I am trying to educate everyone on what these things look like.  The head had a bit of a shine to it and is trianglular in shape.  I had seen the snake before, but it dissapeared before I could get my shovel.  The right picture shows the shape more. I opened its mouth to see the fangs and they were there, about 1/2 inch, looked like fine hyperdermic needles.  After removing the head, we buried it so kids and animals could not play with it and come in contact with any venium.  I am told a dead snake can cause problems if someone or a puppy was poked with the fang.  The picture above and to the left is the body with the color pattern.  We estimate it at being 3 foot long or a bit under.  It is on top of a medium dog house.

Snow Man, one of our Icelandic rams was watching the ordeal with the snake.  Last summer he was bit by a snake under the chin and swelled up like a basket ball.  We almost lost him and it took a month for him to recover.  I am sure he was happy to see us finally catch that guy... Snow man has recovered and we hope to use him for breeding this fall.  He is long, wide and has the beefy butt we like.  Had to take off the horns though, grew to close to his head.  He carries spots and we want his build and spots this year.  Will breed him to the ewes with the best horns and Havvah.

More later...  Oh, do not worry Ken, the boys were not at the farm when Mr Paul and I took care of the snake.  Mr Paul's grandsons are visiting from Ill..  Mr Paul did fuss at young Ken to not wear flip flops out at the farm and he is wearing shoes now...  Especally after seeing the snake...  Don't worry, the hospital carries  Antivenin.  We deal with several snake bites every summer.  Antivenin covers rattle snake and cotton mouth snakes, all the viper group.