I thoroughly enjoy the photography and thoughtful comments on Barb Mourglia’s website.

http://mourgliaphotography.com/blog/

You should visit. Go ahead, you know you want to.

Tonight I was tending to my small flock of chickens and was in the chicken yard and found a ringneck snake under a waterer. I watched it a bit and then went back to cleaning and filling the waterers up. A minute or two later, a little red hen came running up and jumped on the ringneck snake and pecked it and slung it around until it was limp, and then she ran off with it, carrying it around and having a good time. It took a lot of doing for her to kill it (assuming it was dead.) There are a couple of black rat snakes that hang around looking for eggs every few days, one 4 or 5 feet long and the other 6+ feet long, and the hens cluck and scold them and sometimes even run up at them. It occurred to me that killing the little snake might have felt a bit like revenge to the hen. Of course, I don’t know how a hen feels or thinks. I often have a difficult time deciphering my own thoughts and feelings.

Erik Weems recently spotted this sign for Weems Road in Manassas, Virginia.

Last night I walked up the hill to lock in the chickens for the night and found this long individual hanging around the hen’s nests. I’d not seen this particular black snake for awhile so had wondered if something had happened to it. My presence didn’t seem to concern it too much and it continued looking for eggs. The hens and the rooster, Russell Crowe were occasionally talking at the snake, but they didn’t seem awfully worried. I don’t want to exaggerate, but it was a six footer, at least. It was as long as the width of my wingspan, which is six foot.

Tonight there were two young raccoons in the hen house and they were scared senseless by my presence. It took ten minutes to finally convince them they could safely leave. I was so glad that I had a broom in there to chase them with. At first they wouldn’t leave the corner nest and were climbing all over each other trying to hide. Finally they left the nest after lots of poking, but then they climbed the chicken house walls and would try to hide up under the roof. Then they left these hiding places, each nearly landing on me as they leapt from their high perches. The first one found the exit pretty quickly, but the second couldn’t. It kept running into the wall searching for the door. I’ve always thought of raccoons as being pretty bright, but I suppose they are like people – when they are frightened out of their wits they lose all sense. Not the best photograph.

Today we had a very rare May snow in the Ozarks of north Arkansas.

This item is from the front page of the April 15, 1965 Eureka Springs Times-Echo newspaper.