If you are wondering where your journal inserts are I can tell you now – inside this computer where they have been locked for a few days now due to the Colorado Storm of ’06!  We have been OUTside of here in the RV with the Ranchhands for the duration. The power went out early Thurs am and didn’t return until late last night. Fortunately we all got to sleep inside the house last night. (thank you for your prayers!!)

We are catching up and mopping up snow puddles and so on this morning. I hope to be back on track with uploads shortly. Meantime you can check out what happens when a prairie snow is coupled with gale force winds. The boys are standing on an icy drift that is literally as high as the fence posts. And the other pic is the INside of the barn door. The snow pushed through every crack and space in the exterior walls and doors.

Snow! Tuesday morning that is. It was shortlived but beautiful. Much more beautiful than the mud it left in its wake. We have great need of more gravel!

No way!      

Way!

   Aidan went out to feed the dog yesterday and came running back in to say there was a snake by the doghouse.  We weren’t too concerned since we have found a few garter snakes in recent weeks. The only other big snake we have seen here was a giant gopher snake a few yrs ago.  He was carried off by a hawk shortly after that. This, howevever was another story…..

   There in the yard was a smallish (3 feet?) snake coiled and hissing at the frantic dog.  The snake’s tail was poised and rattling in the middle of the coils and its head was tracking the dog menacingly. It was venomous. Allen got his gun and shot it, though let me just say these buggers are remarkably resilient. : /   Took a few shots to finally do it in and safely remove it from the yard. We were able to all get a good close up look so we know what to look for in the future.

   The future is our concern today. This snake was clearly not full grown which begs the question of where it came from and if there are more. Everyone is on snake alert. We can’t figure out what the draw would be to the house since we are pretty much rodent free with all these barn cats.  The net did say that snakes are more active in early fall as they seek warmer winter quarters. It is enough to give a mother a good case of the heebie jeebies regardless of the snake’s original intention. Thank you guardian angels!

There is a LOT of sky around here. (that’s the really nice way of saying there isn’t a lot in the way of it lol!)  When it storms we are often treated to some spectacular displays.  This would be one of them – the double rainbow.  Although with the naked eye we could see both complete arcs stretching across the sky, the camera could not capture them in one frame. You have to just imagine these images all together. 

Think this means there were two pots of gold?

Life and death are sometimes just a breath apart. That is have been driven home to us this past month. Before the birth of our goat kids we had a cat give birth and lost her and the kittens.  It was a freak situation actually.  She was Alannah’s cat and she had suffered severe injury last summer.  Tangled with a skunk and broke her hip.  She drug herself around for 2 wks then managed to regain her gait though her tail always drooped after that and she was pretty much incontinent.  Still, she was Alannah’s cat, seemed in no pain, and we put off making  decision about her.

Then cat came up pregnant (contrary to the questions we get at the checkout line we DO know how that happens lol!)  and then noone had the heart to put her down. We figured we would give her a chance.  She ended up laboring in the sunroom, behaving nothing like a normal cat would under the circumstances.  She was on the windowsill, at the door, you name it.  Finally ended up with a torturous delivery of a dead, deformed kitten with lots of help from Asher. (I told him it would count for biology……)   She couldn’t deliver the rest and was massively infected from the continence issues.  We knew it was time for her but it did shake our confidence in the whole birthing process. The uneventful birth of the goats soon after was a huge boon to the girl’s morale.

Last night Aidan ran outside to start his part of evening chores – filling up the horse’s trough with the hose. He ran back in to announce that a chicken had fallen into the trough some time earlier and was almost dead. Sure enough. She was just holding her nose above the water line when we got her out and she collapsed, shuddering.  Probably sensible farmers would have finished her off.  She is 2 yrs old already, which makes her something considerably more than a "Spring Chicken".  But we tend to feel that life deserves a chance.

There isn’t really much you can do for a chicken.  They are remarkably hardy but do seem to find more than their share of trouble. We went with the "clean and dry" idea.  It works well for preventing disease and was the only trick we had up our sleeves.  We set the hair dryer on low and blew her dry.  Took 40 minutes!  Never underestimate how much water a chicken can hold. She wouldn’t bear weight and laid on her side sorta convulsing the whole time.  Didn’t seem like there was much chance of recovery.  We tucked her in to the broken playpen that was sitting near the trash waiting for pickup and wished her well.

Meantime, Moira started feeding in the barn and ran back in to announce that Oreo the cat had her kittens.  THAT seemed incredible.  She didn’t look all that big – first time mom and all. ; )  She had three lovely looking kittens, one gray and two copies of mom. The children, as taken as their mother is with theme names <g> dubbed them Ding Dong, Snickerdoodle, and Cookie.  While Allen and I silently pondered the long term ramifications of an unspayed cat plus 3 more kittens and their potential reproduction rates the reality of prairie life showed its face.  A coyote was spotted right in the backyard after dark.  We chased him off but it highlighted the unchanging truth that you can’t take anything for granted out here.

We woke up this morning to another surprise.  The hen was up in the playpen wanting out. She looked all primped and puffed with her blow dry from last night. And she laid an egg in gratitude.  Here are her *after* pics.  If she got pneumonia from this there won’t be much we can do but as of now she looks no worse for wear. 

So Happy Mother’s Day Oreo.  And Cutie the chicken, you go girl.