First rattlesnake of the year

You can barely see the rainbow through the gossamer strands of cloud/rain coming down. I'm sure there are tricks to use where the rainbow would show up better but I don't know many tricks.

5/14/09 Thursday
I’ve got some catching up to do on this journal. I usually write in the morning but lately I’ve been getting to work outside as early as I can, even skipping breakfast, or at least putting it off till later. By the time the day ends I’m pooped and hurt so just go to bed. But for me the day has been ending about 9:30 in the evening lately. I usually have to take a break for a couple of hours around three or so and get my second wind after that. By then things have cooled off some so I go back to work.

I’ve made a lot of progress, in a slow kind of way. I was determined to finish planting the blackeyed peas last night but ran out of steam and couldn’t see well because of the dark so called it quits. I’ll finish that today. We had purchased a seeder at a moving sale Saturday but it only has one of the plates that are designed to fit certain size seeds and place them at a variety of distances. I was excited about this potential work and back saving tool but unfortunately it didn’t work with the blackeyed peas. I’ll go online and see if I can find anyone selling the plates.

I want to build a device that will help me put in the drip tape. It would be similar to the seeder and spare me the pain of bending over and walking backwards the entire seventy five foot length of each row as my hands bury the tape just inches in the ground. With the device I have in mind it would be much simpler and easier to do, just rolling it down each row.

Two nights ago I killed the first rattlesnake for the year. Had gone out to shut things down for the night and as I walked back in I suddenly heard a fierce rattling. Turning quickly with the flashlight in hand I illuminated the rattler. It was only five feet away. Despite having the flashlight, which I carried specifically to spy the rattlesnakes that are so active at night, I never saw the little guy. Little because it was only about a yard long. I forgot to tell Cherie when I got in and forgot all about it till I found it’s body laying where I put it in the garage. “Oh! That’s right, I killed a rattlesnake” I remembered. So here’s a picture of it.

Yesterday we noticed that a light had come on in our stove top. It’s one of the lights that indicate a burner is on and none of them were. That’s not good. It means that electricity is leaking and leaking electricity isn’t a good thing ever. Besides that, one of our burners had stopped working months ago so there’s something going on. I’ll be pulling that unit out of the counter today and will take it apart to see if I can fix the problem. Something else that takes time away from getting the crops in.

One of our readers sent us a donation for Ben’s vet bill. It’s a thoughtful thing and tremendous help right now. Thank you. There wasn’t a name attached, just some initials for a signature. Thank you again. Just so you know, we do plan on getting Gretchen fixed and appreciate the names you gave us of groups that help get that done.

I guess I won’t be able to put any of the snake pictures up, or any others I take for a while. The camera is no longer able to hook up with Cherie’s laptop. I don’t know if it’s the USB cord that goes from the camera to her computer or something in the camera itself but it just doesn’t work. Nuts. What next? It’s a beautiful camera that Janie gave us after she upgraded to a new one. I hope it only needs a new cord. Will go to Best Buy and see if they can get one. They might be able to test it and make sure it’s broken before I order another one. The camera has one of those removable cards that stores pictures on it but our computers don’t have the proper slot to plug it into. At least I have all the pictures I took Saturday. There are some really cool ones of a rainbow. (Top of the post)