Surprise Miracle

Guess what Evie found when she went out to feed the chickens this morning?

Fight or flight? Fight or flight? I can't make up my mind!

If you guessed a guinea with 17 chicks waiting at the gate, you guessed right!  What a surprise!  Especially since we thought all three of our guinea were female.

Fight!  See how her back feathers are all puffed up?  She is also hissing at me.

Evie caught all the chicks (keets, actually) while the mother was eating and we got them all settled into the brooding side of the coop.  We have never had a bird go off in the woods and successfully hatch out a nest of chicks.  Mark has three nests brooding under hens right now, something that I wasn't happy about.  We already have too many chickens.  But I can't be mad about a guinea hatching her own nest in the woods. Evie has named the mama guinea "Miracle" and is completely smitten with the keets.  Now we just need to clean up the brooding side and make a proper space for them.  (Thank goodness the weather is warm; the snake is using the warming light)

Daily Daniel and A Better Mousetrap

Today's Daily Daniel was brought to you by...a few scratches on Daniel's tummy.  I asked where he got them, he told me Ian did it.  He then went on to say, "And I'm gonna eat more meat than him and grow big and strong and then I'm gonna punch him and kick him and teach him a lesson!"

Daniel made pizzas all by himself!

I said, "Wow! You know, Ian likes being punched and kicked.  If you want to teach him a lesson, you'd better hug him and kiss him instead.  He really hates hugs and kisses."  Without even thinking on it, Daniel says, "Then YOU need to teach him a lesson!"

 It doesn't take long for a mouse to chew through the box it comes home in...

...my menfolk managed to catch it in less time than it took to chew the hole.  Shane was the first to see it run across the floor.  Ian caught it.  Mark fed it to the snake.  Either Steve needs to eat faster (he eats two mice in one feeding), or Petco needs a better lunchbox!  I'm so thankful that Shane discovered the mouse before it made a home in the couch...because that's my bed until we have our nights figured out (and Mark is past his crazy time of year).  I don't mind sleeping in the same room as Jack the dog, Steve the snake, Sheldon the tortoise, and various wood-dwelling insects, but I draw the line at rodents.  Bleh!

Sneaky Snake

How on earth did this snake slither into my home???

Mark has a picture almost identical to this one dated 1998

Meet [still unnamed snake].  He is a ball python that Mark got for himself for Christmas.  Mark has always loved snakes and at one point owned five different species at a time!  When we first got married, he owned three red-tailed boas (and 2 dogs, 3 cats, numerous fish, 13 tarantulas, and 2 scorpions.  And rats for the snakes.).  Two of the boas were six feet long and one was five feet long.  The five foot snake was albino and is still on display at the Reptile Zoo.  She is a lot bigger now than she was when we donated her!  Mark, Ami, and Laura had many adventures raising and caring for snakes before I came along and Mark really wanted to recreate that experience for this bunch of kids.  Minus the home-grown snake food.

The good snake-fetching story is...Heidi was two days old.  Mark offered to take Lula and Daniel to Costco with him so I could rest.  He said the trip would take him a long time because taking two small children will slow him down.  After "a long time," I got up and used his computer to check my email.  I saw a craiglist ad opened to a ball python for sale and another page with driving directions to a place in Bremerton.  I looked out the window and saw that Mark had cleaned up his old snake cage and was letting it dry in the sun.  I had a terrible feeling his "long trip" involved more than just groceries.  HOW DARE HE? Didn't he know that we had a two day old baby and he was not to disturb my nest with anything new? Didn't he learn anything from the time he brought home a new rug after Ian was born? Didn't he know that I was prime for a hormonal breakdown at any moment??? 

I really don't have a problem with snakes.  I was actually quite sad when the boas were donated.  But I didn't like the way Mark didn't tell me up front that he was planning on going farther away than Costco.  And I didn't like the way he wasn't answering the cell phone... He did eventually call me back and I chewed him out.  He figured that because he had the two difficult kids with him, he could do whatever he wanted and everything would be fine at home.  Well, he was WRONG.  What if I got hungry? Who would make my sandwich? Not the four self-sufficient kids playing video games downstairs! He came straight home with no new snake (bearing gifts of sweet potato chips and Doritos).  And Daniel got my revenge for me...yes, he still gets carsick on long car rides.  See, when Mark wasn't answering the phone, he was in the King County Library (with the kids).  And poor Daniel isn't up to that long of a car ride.  It's probably a good thing he didn't have to go all the way to Bremerton!

I haven't seen a smile this big for a long, long time!

I let Mark bring the snake home a few days later.  I was done with the immediate postpartum hormone crash and ready to seize the day.  The snake is living in our reptile condo...also known as the shelves downstairs that boast heat and basking lamps.  Sheldon the tortoise is the snake's downstairs neighbor.  This brings our pet collection up to two dogs, two cats, five fish, a tortoise, a snake, and a bunch of poultry.  And seven kids ages 11 and younger-they totally count as pets...sometimes.