Rant for the Day (keep it clean)

[Sonya_6]

A few minutes ago as if my day wasn't trying enough a huge 8 foot long wide as little end of baseball bat got our 2 little 2 week old RIR peeps. He had already swollowed one and killed the other.
Hubby grabbed him by the tail and slung him thru the yard.
Now hubby and I had argument cause he wanted to kill the snake. Snake was just doing what snakes do. And they kill all the rats, gophers,etc,etc,etc, that cause havic.
The little barred rocks 4 week olds are still shaken up. We had them in brooder with Reds covered with chicken wire. With wire in middle dividing them. Snake was trying to get through other side of chicken wire to them too when we saw it. Don't know how the snake got in his head was so large?
We have never lost chicken to a snake, some eggs,yes.

Acks sorry to hear that. Hope you stopped hubby from harming the snake. You are right, that is what snakes do, and if chicks are served up as a free lunch they WILL take advantage of it.

Snakes are my biggest concern here, they will eat eggs (which is fine), and chicks, and even sometimes kill adult bantams even though they usually cannot swallow them. I try very hard to lock the coop up at dusk when the nights turn warm else my birds will be attacked.

Can you reinforce the brooder with 1/2 inch hardware cloth? I would think about pulling the remaining babies in, they must be utterly terrified to be out there now.

 

[Meerkat]

Acks sorry to hear that. Hope you stopped hubby from harming the snake. You are right, that is what snakes do, and if chicks are served up as a free lunch they WILL take advantage of it.

Snakes are my biggest concern here, they will eat eggs (which is fine), and chicks, and even sometimes kill adult bantams even though they usually cannot swallow them. I try very hard to lock the coop up at dusk when the nights turn warm else my birds will be attacked.

Can you reinforce the brooder with 1/2 inch hardware cloth? I would think about pulling the remaining babies in, they must be utterly terrified to be out there now.

We have hardware clothe for floor but will have to replace 1" wire with 1/2 inch wire. Cover the whole brooder. Peeps are back inside now.I held them for about 30 minutes while hubby set up inside. They went to sleep up against my warm body and hands.
We don't kill snakes here unless they just keep coming back and are poisonous. One rattler we took to the woods 3 times, it came back was killed. I don't like doing that but he was dangerous to us and our dogs.
Todays snake was probably a King Snake but looked a lot like an Ananconda in length, thickness and colors the fools allow to come into this nation and sell at pet stores. Now everglades all the way up here in north Florida have them. I hope not because that is one I will kill myself, it has no predator's here and it is taking over our wetlands. Even killing goats and baby cattle.

 

[Sonya_6]

We have hardware clothe for floor but will have to replace 1" wire with 1/2 inch wire. Cover the whole brooder. Peeps are back inside now.I held them for about 30 minutes while hubby set up inside. They went to sleep up against my warm body and hands.
We don't kill snakes here unless they just keep coming back and are poisonous. One rattler we took to the woods 3 times, it came back was killed. I don't like doing that but he was dangerous to us and our dogs.

Most snakes have large territories, you need to transport them miles away or else they will come back. The first was a very large ratsnake in the coop, she ate a few chicks and I took her 7 miles away. I regret doing that now as she was an incredibly tame/sweet animal and it didn't solve the snake problem.

Now there are two smaller rat snakes and 1 timber rattler that have lived under the hen house for about 3 years, the ratsnakes won't hurt the birds during the day but I have to be sure to lock the hen house up at dusk else one WILL try to take a bantam.

I do worry a bit about the rattler, but he rarely comes into the yard (and if he does I use a super soaker on him, he hates that). Timber rattlers are actually VERY docile animals, they are the preferred serpent for the Pentacostal snake handlers because they are so docile (and usually will only bite if they are actually attacked).

I do get nervous in the summer though as a couple of my dogs sniff around the perimeter of the yard actually LOOKING for snakes, and the coonhound has NO fear of serpents whatsoever. If I hear that "I found something" bark I tear out there like lightening. Two summers ago the coonhound and one of my others got bit in the face after grabbing a baby rattler and that lead to some high drama, I keep prednisone at home now "just in case". I hope the coonhound learned his lesson, he did leave it the heck alone after it bit him.

 

[Meerkat]

Most snakes have large territories, you need to transport them miles away or else they will come back. The first was a very large ratsnake in the coop, she ate a few chicks and I took her 7 miles away. I regret doing that now and she was an incredibly tame/sweet animal.

Now there are two smaller rat snakes and 1 timber rattler that have lived under the hen house for about 3 years, every day I am watching out for them as they should be emerging soon.

I do worry a bit about the rattler, but he rarely comes into the yard (and if he does I use a super soaker on him, he hates that). Timber rattlers are actually VERY docile animals, they are the preferred serpent for the Pentacostal snake handlers because they are so docile (and usually will only bite if they are actually attacked).

I do get nervous in the summer though as a couple of my dogs sniff around the perimeter of the yard actually LOOKING for snakes, and the coonhound has NO fear of serpents whatsoever. If I hear that "I found something" bark I tear out there like lightening. Two summers ago the coonhound and one of my others got bit in the face after grabbing a baby rattler and that lead to some high drama, I keep prednisone at home now "just in case". I hope the coonhound learned his lesson, he did leave it the heck alone after it bit him.

Sonya lets go to the Chicken forum with this.

 

[Sonya_6]

Moved to chicken forum. Sorry I don't know how to delete posts.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Meerkat sorry to hear about the little peeps .

 

[Meerkat]

@Meerkat sorry to hear about the little peeps .

 

[Meerkat]

I guess my rant is about myself. Hubby said I dwell on negative news and he is right.
So for next few weeks i will only post good news even if it is hard to find.
He got really upset about last article I put up.
In defense of myself it is hard to ignore so much but it is not good for me to read about it either.

 

[Sonya_6]

In defense of myself it is hard to ignore so much but it is not good for me to read about it either.

Sounds like you need a new project/hobby to grab all your attention. Something that will keep you busy researching/learning and take up real life time as well as your internet time.

Plus since much of the internet is an echo chamber, once you have a new interest your feeds on youtube and other sites will change and you won't see as much negative content. The only time I come across real "news" is when I read about it on a forum, the rest of the time my youtube feed is all movies, gardening stuff and crime videos.

 

[Meerkat]

Sounds like you need a new project/hobby to grab all your attention. Something that will keep you busy researching/learning and take up real life time as well as your internet time.

Plus since much of the internet is an echo chamber, once you have a new interest your feeds on youtube and other sites will change and you won't see as much negative content. The only time I come across real "news" is when I read about it on a forum, the rest of the time my youtube feed is all movies, gardening stuff and crime videos.

I think your right. Sometimes I don't even leave the driveway for a month. And we have too much to do thats work and no fun.

 

[user 55]

I think your right. Sometimes I don't even leave the driveway for a month. And we have too much to do thats work and no fun.

Have to find some time for fun in there somewhere. Easy to get sucked into negativity when it’s all around us.

 

[Meerkat]

Sounds like you need a new project/hobby to grab all your attention. Something that will keep you busy researching/learning and take up real life time as well as your internet time.

Plus since much of the internet is an echo chamber, once you have a new interest your feeds on youtube and other sites will change and you won't see as much negative content. The only time I come across real "news" is when I read about it on a forum, the rest of the time my youtube feed is all movies, gardening stuff and crime videos.

Have to find some time for fun in there somewhere. Easy to get sucked into negativity when it’s all around us.

Thanks yall for the positive push. :thumbs up:

 

[Amish Heart]

Just reading about negativity on gdonna.com's website today. She was talking about weeding and cleaning as her way of not listening to the junk going on.

 

[Resto]

 

[Weedygarden]

We don't kill snakes here unless they just keep coming back and are poisonous. One rattler we took to the woods 3 times, it came back was killed. I don't like doing that but he was dangerous to us and our dogs.

People in the plains state have rattlesnake hunts. A man I went to h.s. with still goes hunting for them. When Nebraska and the Dakotas were being homesteaded, there were many losses due to rattlers, people and animals. Women would go to hang their laundry on the clothesline, get bit and die. Cattle, horses, dogs and more would be killed by them. Because life was already difficult enough, living in sod shanties with no electricity or running water, having rattlesnake hunts was the way to decrease the danger for families. There are counties in Nebraska that claim they have no rattlers now, because they hunted them.

My grandfather almost died from a rattler bite. It was the one time he would surely use his gun, to kill a rattler on the steps of the house or in the yard.

 

[tiffanysgallery]

When i was a kid my parents would send me to camp for the summer. One summer the male camp counselors found a snake. And of course, i ran to see it, along with the other kids. When i got there the counselors were "showing it off" and someone shouted, "What are you going to do with it?" And one male counselor said, "Were going to eat it for our evening meal."

Well, there was no way i was going to eat snake!. Later, when it came time to eat, we had what i believed to be snake. So, i didn't touch it. But, now that i'm a little older, and know better, i can say there was no way one snake could have feed the entire camp for our evening meal, lol.

 

[Peanut]

I despise the Alabama Power company. Twice today my power went off, just a few seconds each time. Just long enough that my tv and computer had to reset. Both are on satellite, the tv takes 5 to 7 minutes to reconnect and redownload programing. Today I had to reset every clock in the house, twice. The second time I was on the phone to the bank to solve an issue, my phone goes dead… after spending several minutes working my way through the automated menus to speak to a live person. I had to this all over again.

It happened one day last week also, off for about 3 seconds then back on.

On average I lose power an hour or more one day each month. This has been going on for 50 years. There are a handful of rural areas in the state that the Alabama Public Service commission allows to be treated like unwanted step children by Alabama Power. There is nothing I can do about it. I pay the same rate for residential service as everyone else in the state but don’t receive the same service. I’m sick of this.

 

[Meerkat]

People in the plains state have rattlesnake hunts. A man I went to h.s. with still goes hunting for them. When Nebraska and the Dakotas were being homesteaded, there were many losses due to rattlers, people and animals. Women would go to hang their laundry on the clothesline, get bit and die. Cattle, horses, dogs and more would be killed by them. Because life was already difficult enough, living in sod shanties with no electricity or running water, having rattlesnake hunts was the way to decrease the danger for families. There are counties in Nebraska that claim they have no rattlers now, because they hunted them.

My grandfather almost died from a rattler bite. It was the one time he would surely use his gun, to kill a rattler on the steps of the house or in the yard.

I understand too many snakes can be dangerous.
And if you remember me telling about mama getting bit by one in Georgia. right on side of he calf. She came close to losing her leg but that was back in 1958.
Rats carry disease like plaque,etc,etc,etc.
Hubby walked up on another yesterday. It ran away. We killed of most of the big cats in this nation and now deer are over populated and getting sicker and fun over causing wrecks that kill people.
We are actually destroying the oceans from peoples insatiable apatite for animal flesh [ which I do eat occasionally]. Private owned animals are not the problem it is commercial farms that raise filthy cruelly treated animals.

 

[Peanut]

An update... An Alabama power truck showed up about 6pm (I called and complained about 2pm). He couldn't find anything wrong. I called a couple of cousins up the line while he was here. They had the same outages... Nothing wrong in my house… it's the power lines that are the problem, just like they have been for the last 50 years.... The power company doesn't make enough in this very rural area to justify the expense of properly maintaining the lines. There are actually 4 such areas in the state.

The Alabama public service commission lets them slide. I have complained twice to the APSC with no results…They don’t care! I’m betting all the commission members own stock in the “Southern Company”. The owners of Alabama Power.

 

[The Lazy L]

I'm stressed and a little overwhelmed right now,.....my mom is 78..3 years ago she was diagnosed with stage 4 uterine cancer and 1b ovarian. .. off to the ER we go. 6 hours later, blood test, urine test, lung x-ray and EKG. Everything looks find, send her home. ... He said, " the tests showed nothing, so we can't keep her in the hospital. ...

Driving home mom says "they just don't want to keep us old people alive". I try not to curse around my mom, but I blurted out an "f them", came home, made appointments with her general Dr and her oncologist and 1 of them is going to get her in at a pulmonologist!...

My mother is going though a similar situation. My oldest sister is having hissy fits because the Doctors "Aren't doing anything!" Sister doesn't what to accept the fact the Doctor's don't have the knowledge to "fix" mom by erasing 20 or 30 of her years.

 

[The Lazy L]

Spent two days in the hospital for my heart issue got the bill today $ 73,000.00!

Taking a expensive vacation from building?

For our last wedding anniversary I took the wife to an expensive place. Hysterectomy and bladder rehung...

 

[tiffanysgallery]

1-2" snow tonight

 

[Weedygarden]

My mother is going though a similar situation. My oldest sister is having hissy fits because the Doctors "Aren't doing anything!" Sister doesn't what to accept the fact the Doctor's don't have the knowledge to "fix" mom by erasing 20 or 30 years of her years.

Twenty years ago, I decided I was going to scrape, tuckpoint and paint my house in the summer. Two weeks into it, I couldn't sleep for all the pain. I stopped all my work, and started seeing doctors. I had some x-rays done in one office and 2 weeks later, had an appointment in another office in the same building where a doctor was to view the x-rays and give me a diagnosis. I went to the second appointment, and they had never received the x-rays, so they were going to cancel my appointment. I told them I would go down a couple floors and pick them up.

I realized then and there how bad getting good health care can be.

 

[Country Living]

I despise the Alabama Power company. Twice today my power went off, just a few seconds each time. Just long enough that my tv and computer had to reset. Both are on satellite, the tv takes 5 to 7 minutes to reconnect and redownload programing. Today I had to reset every clock in the house, twice. The second time I was on the phone to the bank to solve an issue, my phone goes dead… after spending several minutes working my way through the automated menus to speak to a live person. I had to this all over again.

It happened one day last week also, off for about 3 seconds then back on.

On average I lose power an hour or more one day each month. This has been going on for 50 years. There are a handful of rural areas in the state that the Alabama Public Service commission allows to be treated like unwanted step children by Alabama Power. There is nothing I can do about it. I pay the same rate for residential service as everyone else in the state but don’t receive the same service. I’m sick of this.

We have our TV and Internet (both are on satellites) on UPSs and that saves a lot of aggravation! You may want to consider that as an option.

I completely understand about talking on a cordless phone when the power blips. It's a pain! Even though our Kohler generator comes on seconds after a power failure, the cordless phone is the one thing that catches us. We keep a corded phone on hand just in case there is an extended power outage and, for some reason, the generator doesn't come on (it's never happened; but, it could...) We don't get cell service out here so we need a land line.

We used to have blackouts and brownouts all the time when we first moved here. We chatted with the local co-op and they changed out our 15kw transformer for a 25kw one and that stopped the brownouts. Then the co-op finally changed out the fuse on the transformer down the road because it would open all the time, regardless of weather, and cause a power failure. The only blackouts we have now are power failures caused by storms or idiot drivers.

There are lots of benefits to living in the boonies. And there are challenges, also. A day doesn't go by when one of us looks at something and asks "what would happen if....". That kind of musing has allowed us to keep ahead of a few things.

I realize what works for us isn't a solution for everyone. As usual, YMMV.

 

[gumpy]

Thanks yall for the positive push. :thumbs up:

Haha, thought of this one for ya!
Don't let worldly things get you down. The only cure for that is death! Lol

 

[Resto]

 

[The Lazy L]

Long line at the fast food drive up. 5 minutes later the car in front of me is finally in line to order. They have had 5 minutes to decide what they were going to order. Did they? No. I wait another few minutes while they hem-haw around deciding what they should order. Now its their turn and the pay window. They act surprised that the worker has asked them for money. They started digging around in their car looking for money. Hallelujah they found their money and have paid. Now all they have to do is to move on to the next window, get their food and they are on their way! Wrong. They now want to change their order ...

And while we are at...the Walmart Shopper whose only goal that day evidently is to spend the day at Walmart. You know they type. The one slowly pushing the cart in a zig zag pattern down the middle of the main aisle. They zig right so you try and pass them on the left just to have them zag left again and cut you off. You finally have an opportunity to pass, get the one item you came to get and head for the check out. Only to find the Zig zagger has somehow managed to get in front of you in the check out line and is questioning the Clerk on prices on almost every signal item.

 

[Resto]

 

[Meerkat]

Why give a 23 yr old fighting bad depression not one but two anti-depressants that both have side effect of suicide? My niece had a baby 4 months ago and broke up with babies dad but was acting strange before that right after birth.
All kinds of side effects with both of these.

 

[Amish Heart]

I'm sick of hearing doctors prescribing crazy pills. They all have a side effect of suicide. That makes no sense to me at all.