keeping up in the country, end of summer, part 2 of 3 or 4

post #208    
       Things happen all the time in the woods. For one thing, trees rot within and blow over.  Like us, most land owners invaribly have a chain saw so these fallen trees can become firewood. Both forest and human do the work they do, life cycles interacting and working together.  New light will shape that new space, and, for sure, more wind will be blowing, one of nature's harvesting tools. In the meantime, photos in that place.

    

THANK YOU, FRANK

       If new firewood isn't exciting enough, how about still another visitor in the chicken house!  This time it's a beautiful and big black snake.  Usually a black snake is good to have around. -- they eat rodents and such.  However, snakes also like eggs.  (The hens are large enough to be safe, and they know the snake doesn't want them, so they don't announce to us that a snake is visiting.)  The first time we saw the snake in action, it had eaten two eggs, and it lay curled up in the nest, very happy.  We didn't see it again for a week.  A few days ago I found it in the nest again, all set to eat an egg. I ran to the house and got my husband, Frank, and my camera. The following photo is taken on the quick, before the snake was interrupted and removed, but that hand held egg shows what I'd call snake slobber.... There wasn't a single crack in the shell.
       (Oh, and by "removed," I don't mean killed.  More like "put outside by means of the far end of a long pole."  The weather will soon be turning cold and we are trying to live with this snake until it hibernates then since it is the first one we have ever observed visiting our few hens.)

       Of interest here to me and to my friend George Ella, whom I am visiting today, is that the serpent with an egg is seen at the famous SERPENT MOUND in Ohio, which is at the minimum over 1000 years old.  The mouth of that serpent is open with an oval shape just beyond!  I look forward to learning more.

       Lastly, for today, let's cut directly to hay making, so to speak -- the second time this summer.  I love the designs the rows make on the hills.  I am sharing a few of the photos today just because it is one of my favorite things to photograph.  What can I say.  For one thing, I admire the workmanship of it all.

      
      Next month I celebrate beginning a fifth (!!) year of these weekly postings. I plan to do something both thoughtful and personal, and, if I can pull it off, humorous at the same time.