Stalemate with a rattler

By Bebe and Sissy Fenstermaker

The spring green is lush this year but strangely, there has been no traceable rain for a month. The days have been overcast for the last week but we are dry. Yesterday there was a light mist off and on, always falling whenever I had outside work to do. I hear Laredo had a nice rain last evening. That said, there is some mowing to be done here. I have worked several evenings but there is more to be done.
I won't be mowing one spot for awhile. Sissy and I were resting on the Aunt Lucy stones yesterday after a full day of physical stuff. Looking toward the barn, a small bird hopping around on the ground caught our eyes. It was a lark sparrow, busily eating grass and other seeds. I love those birds and to me they seem rare these days. I used to see them everywhere but due to the homogenization of yards, mowing, and mono-planting they aren't seen as much. No mowing in the seeding areas for now; the lark sparrows make the call!
Actually, we do not mow regularly except in heavy traffic areas. Any other cutting is only done once in July and once in February. That way all the native plants have a chance to grow, make seed, and scatter it. There is tremendous damage done by regular mowing of roadsides, meadows and fields in Texas. Each year the varieties of wildflowers, native grasses, and other plants are lowered because the plants cannot make seed and mature it for reseeding. We always think that if a place is mowed it looks neat and tidy. We rarely think of the damage we are doing in our efforts to look so spiffy. Leave some for the birds and other wildlife. Leave some for color, variety, and texture.
That said, I have been mowing because one afternoon this month I met an unexpected stranger in the barn. I heard him from the garden but I thought it was the sound of the water trough filling up. Or it could be the big hackberry tree's leaves in the wind, I thought. No siree, when I went into the barn to feed the cat there was the biggest rattlesnake I'd ever seen, coiled up at the corner of the tool room. He was mad, his rattling so loud it was a shriek. It was not a good scene. I didn't have the right shovel to do the job. Let me say right here, when that kind of snake is where he was (a place I am in all the time), I do not hesitate to move it into the next world. However, the twilight and his location made it a bad proposition. He sidewinded back to establish himself against the stone wall under the ladder to the loft. The advantage was all his. If I shot, I'd hit the rock wall and who knows who else. If I weighed in with the shovel I had, he was a lot longer than the handle and had the wall to project from. As I debated, a small dark form shot between the snake and me to a hole under the tool room. Since the cat was at one end of the walkway and the snake was at the other, I'd managed to save the rat! I hate to admit this but I quit on that. Now I am poking and prodding as I go through the barn, ever listening for that sound. Mowing around the outside of the barn is truly like closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out. I am putting that snake on notice, though; cross that mowed line and it's hash time.
Little Ducky gosling is at the terrible-looking stage. Still sort of greenish-colored, he/she has funny feathers coming out all over. Its name is not my doing. The person who always has something derogatory to say about my animal names did this one. Ducky is a real self-starter. It works all day on long grass in the yard, doing a service I never anticipated. It has a sunny attitude for a goose and comes running when I call it. It has beheaded all the tomato plants within reach.
The baby chicks I ordered arrived but there was an unpleasant surprise in the box. Fourteen extra chicks had been added to the order of 40. Manuel picked up his 12 future laying hens, leaving me with almost double what I ordered. I had just so many boxes, heat lamps, and things. This is overwhelming, what was the hatchery thinking? The additions are all roosters. I only ordered pullets. Manuel said no problem, we'll have a big barbecue. I had no plans for what has to be done before the pleasure of a barbecue takes place, absolutely no plans at all.

Bebe Fenstermaker