Well, I haven’t posted about my snakes for 4 months but I swear, there’s a good reason!
while I think of it, I’ll post about something else.
I have worked at the same company for ~23 years and I’m now the plant/general/production manager. This is good in that I have a great paycheck but it also means there’s no where to go, no time off, I can’t even begin to replace this job if I wanted to and I spend all day dealing with people, which is not my forte.
The company tripled in size last year and spent a ton of money acquiring new companies, man power and equipment as our primary market contracted. The manufacturing sector has been screwed up ever since Trump’s trade war with China started and, as I type this, the world is going nuts about the corona virus which is really hurting global economics. OH! And it’s an election year which always depresses spending by large companies which means sales are off.
So, I have a stressful job I’ve had for a long time at a company that’s suddenly growing and changing on top of unpredictable economic and social stuff all of which means instability and economic uncertainty!
What would a wise person do in volatile times like these? I don’t know but I bought some land.
It’s basically two iron ore hills and the valley in between covered with scrubby trees but I don’t have to mow it and that fills my heart with joy!
I’m super excited to see what crawls out of the tree stumps and rocks this summer. I’ve already found a few interesting things but before we get to the good stuff we have to address the shirtless hillbilly in the room. For many years this property belonged to some white trash plumber who tossed all the old hot water heaters and broken fixtures on the property. So far I have hauled off 3 trailer loads of scrap metal and water heaters. There are at least 2 more trailer loads of water heaters and busted toilets and sinks to contend with and then I can get to the stuff I’m going to have to winch out of the woods. Yup…these are “my people”
But I know what you’re thinking “There must be snakes hiding in all that junk!! You are correct!!
Behold!
The rare water-heater rat snake!
This one took a ride up the hill before I found him. I was afraid he’d been sm00shed but he’s fine.
And there are other cool things there as well. Like this teeny tiny spider who was hiding under a rock.
That’s pretty cool. There are also squirrels, rabbits, foxes, coyotes, deer and all the other normal East Texas forest stuff, but I’ll wrap up with one cool thing you might never have seen. In some places where they replant with pine trees you sometimes get this bright blue mold. I’ve found it on sticks a time or two but this whole log was covered with it. Neat.
Finally, down to business. I’ve warmed up the snakes, begun feeding and soon it will be time to make baby snakes again. I really do need to sell about 20 animals this year but we’ll see what happens. My time for this hobby is being taxed pretty heavily and I have other grown-up stuff to concentrate on now, like building fences.