Woke up this morning to the sound of rain.... enough rain that my friends and I didn't go for our usual morning walk today. I can't even remember the last time we missed walking because of rain. On a normal day, we walk down our road, up the next road and all the way to the main highway, and then back home. Actually, because it's been so blasted hot the past few months, we haven't exactly walked up to the main highway..... we get about halfway to the finish line and then we all turn around because it feels like there's no air to breathe.
The temperatures hovered around the 100 mark all summer long... and of course we had precious little rain to speak of. The ponds are all empty, unless they've been flooded with hoses running from the barns down to the ponds. They call the ponds 'tanks' if they're meant to provide drinking water to livestock. If they're stocked with fish and if kids can swim in them, then the locals call them 'ponds.' Being that our pond hasn't had water in it mostly all summer long, I just call it a great big hole in the ground. We don't have livestock.... we don't have kids..... and even if we did, I wouldn't want any child of mine swimming in a hole in the dirt. Heaven only knows what would be swimming or slithering around in that water.
It's been a lucky summer in that we haven't seen many snakes up near the house. That could be because we don't have chickens anymore. One of our neighbors told me "If y'all have chickens, then y'all are gonna have snakes, no doubt about it." I kind of poo-poohed that statement, until my favorite red chicken, Scarlett, was killed by a snake because she wouldn't get off of her egg in the nesting box. And it wasn't even a real egg, for goodness sake.
Scarlett was such a good hen... so friendly, and always wanting to be picked up and petted. She loved her feathers smoothed back for her as you held her in your arms, and then when you put her down, she would fluff out her feathers and stretch her neck and just blink at you a few times with those yellow eyes of hers. She was also good with her eggs, or the eggs of the other chickens. Scarlett would sit on those eggs, just waiting for them to hatch into baby chicks and she would have probably been a very protective mama hen, if given the chance. Without a rooster, however, none of our chickens were able to produce anything but eggs ready to cook and eat..... no baby chicks without a rooster. Scarlett, however, wasn't aware of that little fact.
That red hen would sit in that nest long after you had taken the eggs out from under her.... and she let me do that, as long as I petted her feathers and told her how pretty she was. Blink, blink went the yellow eyes, and I'd slip my hand underneath her and take the eggs. But Scarlett would just sit there. I replaced the real eggs with an egg made of stone..... she was so determined to sit in that nest, and nothing I did convinced her to go out and scratch in the yard.
The chicken coop was so safe and secure..... raccoons, coyotes, and foxes were never able to get in there. But one night, a snake managed to get himself into the coop.... Scarlett was in her nesting box sitting on the fake egg..... the other hens were up on the roosting bar. That snake wanted whatever was in that nesting box.
When I unlocked the coop gate in the morning, the hens were right at the gate, waiting to get out..... but I quickly saw that Scarlett was still in the nesting box, with her head hanging over the side. Those yellow eyes were staring out at me without blinking. It took about three seconds for me to see the snake curled up in the corner of the coop...... and out I ran..... screaming for my husband all the way.
Apparently, the snake had killed Scarlett, and then got underneath her and swallowed that egg.... the fake egg made of stone. Not easily digested, to say the least, plus the bulge in the snake prevented him from slithering back out of the coop...... so he curled up in the corner.... and he was nearly dead by morning. My husband shot him anyway.... three times. Once would have probably been enough, but we were both so angry at what happened to Scarlett. That afternoon, I called a neighbor and asked him if he wanted the rest of my chickens for his own coop. My husband power-washed the coop..... we've been using it as sort of a screen-porch for the outside cats and they love it.
It's still raining here........ and has been for most of the day. It's been so long since we've had a good stay-at-home rainy day in the hills here. Out pond looks like it has a few puddles in it..... the ground is so dry that all the rain that's falling is being soaked up by the soil. We would need a bunch of rainy days till the ponds are filled up again.
Funny..... the things you think about on rainy days like this. I used to go shoe-shopping on rainy days back in Clear Lake..... now I'm sitting here thinking about a red hen with yellow eyes.
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