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.