It’s been a minute since I’ve posted about the homestead and it’s time to rectify that. We’ve been busy prepping for winter. Most of the barreled rain water has been released to keep from freezing. That’s something I need to work on in the following years. The outside piping is rudimentary and not ready for cold weather. If I left the rain water, those pipes would freeze and bust, so for now, no winter water storage.

The garden has been pulled and covered and the first frost has come. We’re actually supposed to be seeing some snow tomorrow. It was just a week ago when we had 70 degree temps. We had around 10 inches of rain a week before that and that washed out this critter.

It was my wife that saw it. The dogs were out and never even knew it was there. Pretty sure that’s a Plains Gartersnake. It was slow moving and slow reacting. I managed to corral it back to the woods, where I imagine it has burrowed down for winter.

I will leave you with one additional snake story. My girls have a daily chore of collecting the chicken eggs. It was August when they went out and got a good fright. As they had been collecting the eggs off of the coop floor, they looked up to the nesting box to find this guy, mouth wide open choking down an egg. Safe to say, it’s been a minute since they’ve been back in. I had to remove the Western Rat Snake with them “somewhat” present to believe that it was gone. Western Rat Snakes are great for rodents, but I’d rather just have a couple cats…