Author: Jo

Bikes & Snakes

Steve and I saw a couple fun sightings today!  Our first sighting was a group of dozens of bikers on Harleys riding down our street.  They could have been a different brand of bike, but when I think of cruiser motorcycles, I think of Harleys, which I’m sure most people do as well.

When we were coming out of our neighborhood we had to wait FOREVER for them all to pass so we could pull out onto the street.  They just kept coming and coming!  When we pulled out behind them, I thought it might be a good idea to take some pictures with my little point and shoot camera.  So that is why the quality isn’t that great when I was zoomed in.  But hey, it’s what I had with me, so you’re just gonna have to deal with it!

This was the first time I had seen this many bikers in one spot since we moved to Tennessee.  Normally we’d only see 2 or 3 at one time, so this was quite a treat.

I felt like we were transported to Sturgis, North Dakota for the Biker Convention!

Our second fun sighting of the day was a King Snake in the back yard of the Smoke House property that we’re rehabbing.

Isn’t he a cute little guy?  I spotted him from the master bedroom window and said “Oh my goodness!  There’s a snake in the backyard!!”  Then Steve and I promptly ran down to take a closer look.

It was the first time I had seen a snake in the wild.  You know, without it being someone’s pet.

Steve has been researching the venomous snakes that are native to Tennessee, so he knew that this one wasn’t poisonous.  Otherwise, I definitely wouldn’t have gotten this close!  When we got back inside Steve said he was proud of me for being so brave.  I think he thought that I would scream and be afraid like most girls, but I HAVE held a couple snakes before.  Plus, there was just something about this one’s face that didn’t look mean.

It had to have been at least 4 feet long!  I wanted to touch it, but Steve wouldn’t let me.

When we got home, we looked up different Tennessee snakes to figure out what breed it was, and that’s when we discovered that it was a King Snake.  Those are the snakes you WANT to have hanging around.  They eat rodents and other pesky animals, as well as venomous snakes occasionally!

Steve was brave and got kinda close to it too.  Next time we see a King Snake, we might even be brave enough to touch it!

After we walked back up to the deck, Boomer (that’s what I named him) crawled under the deck, and when we came out about an hour later he was nowhere to be found.  There are several holes in the yard that he could have crawled into.

Bye Boomer!  Thank you for letting me get so close without biting me!  You are a very pretty snake, and I hope we see you again!  You are welcome in our yard anytime, as long as you eat pesky critters and keep other not so friendly snakes away. 🙂

Charming Pink Baby Blanket

Yesterday, I completed a baby blanket for a friend who is having a baby girl in July.  It’s her first child, and she is really excited and nervous all at the same time.  I was so happy to make this for her and her precious new bundle of joy, whom she is going to name Emma.  I love the name Emma.  I wanted to name my first daughter that for a while.

Here’s a close up of the pretty shell pattern.

There is a pretty, solid border around the shell pattern, followed by an open stitched border to give the edges a pretty ruffled look.

I just love making blankets for baby girls.  So much pink! 🙂  I have a feeling that when I have a daughter of my own (hopefully) one day, there is going to be a lot of pink in our house.

I’d Like to Check You for Ticks

Not really.  But I do like that song by Brad Paisley.  It’s officially flea and tick season here at our house….well mainly ticks, and we seem to be finding them EVERYWHERE!!!  They give me the heebie jeebies.

A couple nights ago, Steve wanted me to come look a bug on our wood floors that he at first thought was a piece of dog food.  He told me to look at it from afar to see just how much it resembled dog food.  I agreed and decided to get a closer look.  That’s when I realized what it was.

An engorged TICK!!!!!

Isn’t that disgusting?!!!!  Eww, I’m getting the shivers just looking at it.  That’s a dog treat that Steve is holding it with.

Here’s the tick next to Steve’s finger so you can see the size of that monstrosity!

I just want to know where it came from.  It’s obviously full of someone’s blood who lives in our house, because I don’t think that a fully engorged tick would just mosey on in and plant itself in the middle of our wood floors for no good reason.  It had to have fallen off one of our animals, or worse……one of us!!!  I checked all the furbabies, and none of them had any fleas or ticks that I could see, but I doused them with flea and tick medicine so that hopefully this won’t happen again.

However, I can’t douse myself with flea and tick medicine….they just don’t make that stuff for humans, and when I came in from picking up dog poop so Steve could mow the lawn (I know, gross.  Sorry.), I found a TICK crawling on my hand!!!!!  Luckily it hadn’t implanted it’s head into my epidermis yet, and was in it’s small shrunken state, but nonetheless…..I was grossed out!  And the thing was, I couldn’t just brush it off me because then it would have landed on the carpet and who knows where it would of gone and to which host it would have attached itself.  So I coaxed it onto a piece of paper and threw it into the garbage can outside.  Hopefully that will deter it from coming back in our house.  I don’t think I can deal with any more ticks in my house.