Mother's Day Snake Hunts and Farm Fun

We headed to the farm for mother's day on Saturday morning. Earlier in the week Zane and I had gone and gotten multiple snake books to help us identify snakes we might come across. Once we got to the farm mom had two snakes waiting for us to look at. Both snakes had passed on, but Zane was still very excited to see them and try to find them in his new books. We went on our first snake hunt around the house Saturday morning. We looked through Maggie's wood and in the gardens, but sadly did not find any live snakes. We looked at the two mom had saved and planned on a big snake hunt for the next day.

 Smooth Green Snake

 Black Rat Snake

The rest of Saturday was full of farm fun mixed with lots of rainy porch time. The rain came and went, so lots of messy fun through out the day. Zach spent most of the day trimming and cutting down trees with the chain say. The boys and I helped hall of branches to the bridge. The creek was up from all the rain, so Zane gave me a miniature panic attack when he sat on the side of the bridge, but I'm happy to report no one fell in. 

Rowan played his first game of poo sticks, it was lots of fun, and oh so cute in their little hats!

 

 The book bag housed all our snake books, just in case we came across any snakes.

 The farm is absolutely gorgeous this time of year, especially with all the rain we have gotten this year. Mom needs to figure out how to get people to come tour her gardens in May, they are amazingly beautiful right now. This shot of the drive way, sums up my happy place. Tress after trees, after trees, after beautiful, greenery. Gorgeous!

 Rowan earned his first Botany Badge, made famous by our dad. Every we were out in the field with him he would tell us the scientific names for every plant we came across. I don't remember the scientific name for this plant, but do remember that I use to wear it with pride after dad would give me my very own botany badge!

Sunday was the big day, time for the big snake hunt. We decided to go to the West pasture, my favorite farm, up on the hill by the cemetery. I remember when our parents use to tell us that if we didn't stop talking at night they were going to send us to four different farms, the fight was always over who would get to go to the West pasture. There are tons of rocks to climb on and multiple ponds, perfect for a snake hunt. We dawned our rain boots and headed up the hill. As soon as we got out of the car we found our first creature, a little frog, later identified I think as a gray tree frog. We caught him and put him our bucket.

Going into this snake hunt I should admit I thought we had about a zero percent chance of finding a live snake, but I did have high hopes that we would see other creatures. There were a heard of cattle there, very confused about what we were doing walking around their field. Little Rowan, who the day before ran away screaming, holding onto me shaking, at the sight of a cat, didn't mind the heard of cows, he waved hi, but no crying. Zane really wanted to pet a cow, sadly we couldn't make that happen. 

 Rowan carried the bucket, with the froggy!

 Zane talking to the cows.

 We found this awesome rock, again my expectations were very low at this point in our hunt. 

We climbed up and down the rocks and saw a snake swimming in the pond and slithering out into the rocks. Zane didn't get to see it, but still exciting. We kept exploring and found all sorts of fun things. There was a huge snake skin on one of the big rocks, which was awesome, and Zane loved. We saw multiple frogs that jumped into the pond, of all different sizes. We caught another little frog, a spring peeper, that went in the bucket. At the second pond we practiced skipping rocks, wadded in the water in our rain boots, and saw a cactus which had a dragon fly stuck in it, I'm guess from the gale force winds. We picked up rocks and saw all sort of insects, including a scorpion which Zane poked with a stick and watched get mad, lots of fun. There were also ducks, geese, and killdeer flying around as we continued exploring.

 I felt for sure that this huge snake skin would be the highlight of our trip, but boy was I wrong.

 Zane loved wading in the pond. For the past few years both of these ponds have been empty, but they are full of water after all the wonderful rain.

 You can't really see the scorpion in this picture, but it is directly under Zane's stick.

 If you look closely at the top of the cactus you can see the poor little dragon fly that got stuck.

Rowan, per his personality, was slightly less adventurous and spent a fair portion of our hunt sitting on the big rocks. As you can see in the back, Zane is tracking a frog at this point.

 On the way back to our car we kept noticing lots of snake holes going under rocks. There were a few cow bones in between rocks, which Zane just stuck his hand right in between the rocks to get. Luckily no snakes came out and bit him. As we passed the last big rock pile mom spotted a big snake, curled up under a flat rock. A real life snake on our snake hunt, I could not believe it. There were pieces of snake skin all along the rocks were he was laying, so we think he had freshly shed his skin and was trying to snooze. Zach pushed the rock back for us so Zane could get a good look at a snake in it's natural habitat. I was listening for a rattle and feeling like I might throw up, oh the things you do for your children. Zane was over the moon excited about! I was probably more so since I did not think we would actually find snakes and Zane probably thought we definitely would, I mean it's a snake hunt, what else would happen.

Above is Zane checking out the snake skin, before we had realized the snake was under that flat rock beside the tree.

 Rowan thinking about sticking his hand under that rock to get some pieces of snake skin. Zach was proud of his fully developed frontal lobe which told him putting his hand under that rock was terrible idea. All grown up with rational thought, not so much for our sons.

 And here is the piece de resistance, what we later identified as a brown rat snake. It was pretty long, but fairly skinny. Zach poked it with a stick and it slithered under the rocks. Zach's frontal lobe also prevented him from picking it up, which probably was a good call.

So as all my friends posted adorable pictures of themselves, all pretty, with their children on Mother's Day, I posted a picture of our big find from our snake hunt. Let me be clear, I am not, by any means a fan of snakes, but currently that is what Zane is obsessed with. He loves to learn about the different kinds and try to figure out what kind of snake is in the pictures Grandma sends, or in this case what we saw. Zane loves all things nature and learning about the world around him and I love this about him. He loves to discover new things and go on adventures.

 So after a night of very little sleep, thanks to Rowan being up for three hours during the night, I put on wet boots and headed out into nature. This wasn't my ideal plan for mother's day, but the thing about being a mom is that nothing makes me happier than to see my kids happy and excited. I don't want him to ever loose this explorer's spirit, so if it is snakes he is into we go on snake hunts. If he's into penguins we turn our house into the arctic. Zane was happy, excited, and thrilled with our snsake hunt finds and he could not wait to tell his cousins about his adventure. And I, some one who could go the rest of my life without seeing a snake again, found myself overjoyed at spending mother's day taking pictures of snakes. That's true love!!!

Farm fun continued Sunday afternoon with Richards clan. We planted the rose bush I got mom and put up a new arch. There was more rain, which meant more porch time. Porch time while it is raining is one of my absolute favorite things in the world, so I am not complaining. There were bike rides, swinging, trees to climb, nature to explore, treasure hunts, cousins to play with, and preparations to be made for Zach's big tree house plans. It was a wonderful mother's day, even with a tired, emotional two year old, who could never quite pull himself together. That's life and I am blessed beyond belief that these two boys call me mom!

 Rowan was an emotional basket case and sometimes he requested hugs from Big Ro Ro. Big Ro Ro is quite a bit bigger and more solid than little Ro, so his hugs quickly turned into tackles.

 Here are the big kids on a their treasure hunt.

 This was Rowan's big find of the weekend, a mushroom. He was so proud of it and wanted everyone to see it.

This big elm tree use to be directly outside of the front door of the old house. It took a big hit during the 2002 ice storm but has come back strong. This is the chosen tree for the great Blakley tree house. Zach is consulting with numerous engineers at work about what is the best way to build it. Preparations began yesterday by pulling off all the vines that had been growing on it for the past few years. I am sure it will be much happier and healthier now.

We headed home late in the evening exhausted beyond belief. Zane fell asleep by the time we got to Douglas while Rowan babbled about random things for an hour to keep himself awake. This morning we were back to our normal morning routine of going to the gym after breakfast. Little did we know that our nature finds would continue today. On the way home we saw this huge alligator snapping turtle crossing Coffe Creek, the big road in front of my house. He was moving very slowly, but all the cars were slowing down and pulling over so he could cross. Of course, being my mother's daughter, we pulled over and hopped out to get a closer look. He was huge and the boys were amazed. He didn't move or try to bit so we all got touch him and get a great up close look at watch is basically a dinosaur. Oh what nature fun!!!! Who knows what we will see this afternoon!

 Another lady from the neighborhood across the street stopped and told us that she sees this guy frequently at her pond so maybe we will see him again soon.

May in Oklahoma

So when we were deciding to move here everyone in St. Louis' response was, "why would you move to Oklahoma? You are going to die in a tornado." To be fair we decided to move back to Oklahoma the fall after one of the worst tornadoes ever had gone through Moore, OK, again. We moved anyway with the goal to have storm shelter in our house and with confidence of knowing that we were moving to a place that they had the best meteorologists in the world.

Our first year here there were zero tornadoes and about 375 earthquakes. We were feeling pretty good about it. This year spring time has been a little bit of different story. The first storm of the season I was at the hospital and got to experience my first Code Yellow, a possible mass casualty event, which means that all available employees have to stay at the hospital until the Code Yellow is cleared. That night I left around nine o'clock and of course had to be back in the morning.

Wednesday afternoon I was at work again. It wasn't a bad day, all was going well, then 5:30pm comes around, "Code Yellow: all available personal stay on your unit until the code yellow is all clear." All the patients and families had their tvs turned to their OKC meteorologist of choice. In this state people choose a weatherman and they are then fiercely on their team. I, and the rest of the state, was firmly team Gary England for years. But Gary retired a year or two ago so now everyone is picking a new guy, I'm undecided so far, just for the record. As I was going room to room helping people into the hallway when the first Code Black, tornado warning, was called every single family was laminating about how they wish Gary was still on TV. Don't we all! File all of this under Oklahoma Problems.

 I digress, as change of shift came and went the winds were whipping around and the rain was pouring down. There were multiple confirmed tornadoes, well south of the hospital, and multiple active tornado warnings. Two more Code Blacks were called and cleared, each time all the patients are taken into the hallway and gathered in the center area of the floor away from windows, but still on the tenth floor. Once the Code Black is all clear, unsure how this is decided, everyone can go back into their rooms. Since I had given report to the night nurse on my patients I had nothing to do but assist with this in and out of the room routine. By ten o'clock the Code Yellow had still not been cleared and lots of streets in and around the hospital were flooded and resembled lakes more than roads.

So a few of us, who had to be back to work in about eight hours, decided to stay at the hospital. This is the absolutely least ideal situation to be in, but we had no idea when the Code Yellow would be cleared and weren't confident we could get home anyway. We all remained in good spirits and laughed at ourselves as we dawned hospital gowns and patient socks then headed to bed in a patient's room, tornado sirens still blaring. Needless to say this was a terrible nights sleep for my roomie and I. I was woken up bright and early, at 5am, by the coordinator calling to ask me if I could go to the PICU. The answer to that was a resounding NO and why are you calling me when I'm asleep at the hospital??

I couldn't go back to sleep so I sat in my hospital bed pondering how I got into this mess. We were back at work by six thirty and in for more fun as the hospital was experiencing various problems as a result of the large amounts of rain and strong winds the night before. There were power surges, and we were on and off generators, all causing fun things like such as not having a tub system to send or receive things to/from other parts of the hospital. This also meant the AC wasn't fully functional, not ideal on the day that I was using hospital deodorant, not the best deodorant to say the least. I was exhausted with a foggy mind, but kept hearing reports of possible storms that evening as well. I had a panic attack all morning, concerned that I would be stuck there again that night.

Things were not going too smoothly Thursday. I was exhausted, with zero patience for the craziness that can be my job. Luckily, shortly before I was sure to have a breakdown, I go the great news that the floor I was on discharged most of the kiddos, so I could go home early. I am sure this was the Lords work since I truly am not sure how I would have made it until seven o'clock. I got home by three thirty and slept for two hours straight. Awake in time for Thursday evenings rain and storms.

As I write this I'm flipping through the various stations, watching the radar, checking out hail sizes, looking for scud, monitoring the flooding. This is May in Oklahoma. Every evening, wondering, watching, getting your storm shelter ready, making/changing your plans depending the skies. So my new, complete fantasy plan, is that I am going to take off the entire month of May, every year, and go travel. It will be a month of birthday celebrations, every year, and then when May is over we will return to see what is left of our house. That way I'm not working until midnight, sleeping at the hospital, and being stuck inside all the long rainy days. If anyone has ideas on how to fund my new idea, let me know!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Friday afternoon Abbey and I met up at the Myriad Gardens for a lovely springtime play date. Lots of fun and the gardens were lovely. I think this outdoor playground is my favorite Oklahoma City activity, it's beautiful, it's nature, and it's free!!

 All five grandkids, sitting still, in the same picture. Love it!!

2. The big news here this week is that Rowan got his first pair of light up, Spiderman, shoes. This was a huge deal and I might have almost cried at the thought of how big my tiny little Ro baby is getting. Rowan loves his new Spidi shoes, needless to say!

3. We went to the park Friday morning to feed the ducks, who were having none of us trying to feed them. Very disappointing! However, we did see a baby goslin, who was lost from his mother, which was adorbs, if slightly sad.

These lovely park time was followed by Zane knocking over a table full of dishes at Panera Bread, causing a huge, embarrassing scene for everyone. Sigh...

4. This weekend, while the Richards were working on new house things, the kids had some unobserved science time, with Scientist Zane, while Zach and I worked on dinner. It was the cutest thing in the world, though it did end pretty messy. Times like this are when I desperately miss my dad. He would have loved all this vinegar and baking soda fun!!

 This was dubbed the experiment bucket, obviously.

 5. This past week Zane has taken up a new found interest in "learning time." He has had a chart on the wall for about a month now, with three stickers on in. Over the past week or two he has does some learning things everyday, filling up the first ten days of his chart. Today he got to go and get anything he wanted at Dollar Tree. He picked a plastic snake, obviously, to go with his current obsession about learning all things snake as well. Zane really likes to "learn" outside, so the beautiful weather has helped. He still shows zero interest in learning to read but we are learning lots of other things, numbers, telling time, letter sounds, shapes, same and different.

This morning we also got these snake books to take with us to farm camp.

Added bonus Grandma sent us a picture of a real live snake that was on the road by her house that we got to try to find in our books. 

6. As I mentioned in last weeks post Rowan has been wanting a Mooly and this week his very own, exactly the same, Mooly arrived. I can't say that he loves her as much as Zane loves Mooly, but I'm not sure anyone loves anything as much as Zane loves Mooly. However, Rowan has cuddled his Mooly most of the week and he seems to be excited to have a cow just like Bobo's.

 Most striking to me is how much old Mooly's had has been squished down from love.

7. This afternoon we headed down to Uncle Able's shop and the kids spent a long time helping Uncle Able bag up all of Abbey and I's spices. Abbey and I did not plan on going at the same time, but that's the joy of the spice shop, it often turns into a family reunion.

 Here are Maggie and Zane scooping out my spice. Zane wore his very own Spice Shop apron and greeted customers as they came in. I am always slightly worried that when my kids are there it might scar people off, but everyone seemed happy to see the kids today.

 Zane is ready to work at the shop, he will be well trained when he can legally work there.

I came home and made fajitas and guac for Cinco De Mayo, using probably ten different amazing savory spices. I am not quite sure how I cooked before the we had the shop.

8. This week Rowan has taken to wearing all sorts of different hats around the house. Zane and Ro have also started to thoroughly crack each other up. This weeks running started when Rowan said "Can we watch Woody," meaning Toy Story, and Zane thought he said "can we watch booty," which they now say over and over and die laughing each time. I love hearing them laughing from the other room. Especially since their laughs are almost identical, it's so adorable.

 Rowan spent quite a bit of time working on his fire truck, tinkering as my dad use to call it.

9. Baseball continues, with at least one game getting rained out every week for the past couple weeks. They just keep rescheduling them, which I think is insane. Yesterday's game went well, everyone seemed to have fun through all of the innings and there were even a couple innings the Little Rascals actually got three outs instead of the umpires ending the inning after seven runs. That's success at this point!

 There was a lot of backyard batting practice this past weekend, with both boys!

 

I love the baseball games for this moment at the end, when my two boys are reunited, and are both over the moon excited!! True love!

10. Exercising continues after the race, though the track at the Y was empty this week. I am going to try to keep running, but feel like I can do a few days of swimming and some more weight lifting, since I don't have to prepare for a race. It is definitely more difficult to convince myself to go in the morning, but managed to get their on all my days off this week. I swam today and felt like I was in much better shape than the last time I swam, but still can only swim for thirty minutes before the pool shuts down. The struggle continues, but trying to stay on the wagon. The kids are enjoying gym time more as of late because we get to go play at the playground when we are done.

 Rowan doesn't really play much at the playground, which is odd. Mainly he sits by me and sometimes pushes his brother on the big chair swing, but doesn't run around like a crazy, like some other little boy I know.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. We're planning on heading to the farm this weekend to spend Mother's Day with my dear mother. I keep forgetting that I will be celebrated as well. It's the best job ever!!!