Ummmmmmm . . . . . . . Deuses????

This was an actual ad on Craigslist today:

HALF DUCK HALF GOOSE BABIES - $10
Date: 2009-03-24, 3:00PM CDT
I will have baby dueses born soon. We thought that the goose and the duck were both boys, WELL....... WE HAVE EGGS! There are eight of them. They are half duck and half goose. They will be for sale about two weeks after they are born. I will be selling them for $10 each. I am sure I will have more to come after that. I am not sure what they will look like but I am sure they will be cute! If you are interested in one of my dueses please call me at ***-***-****I will take your name and number and call you when they are ready. Thanks.

Bless her heart. I'm sure she's gotten a bazillion emails already. I hope that, by now, someone has tactfully informed her of the facts.

Ducks/geese/chickens just lay eggs. No fertilization necessary.
Ducks/geese do not cross. If so, we'd have them at every duck pond in the universe.

I wonder if she's keeping them for two weeks so they can nurse.

(kidding)

This ad did make my day, though. :-D

You Might Be a Redneck If . . . . . .

You put Halloween decorations on your pokeweed.

Seriously, I haven't had such a goofy case of the giggles in a long time. Mike and I were in our hometown over the weekend, and were driving past a former neighbor's house. These particular neighbors have always had an unkempt lawn to say the least, and, well . . . . just strange ways in general. Mike was reminiscing (ranting) about the fact that growing up he always got jipped into mowing their side of the property line which they neglected. Mid-sentence he blurted, "Oh. I like how they decorated their pokeweed."

WHA!!!??? I burst out laughing. That had to be the most random and absurd thing I'd heard in I don't know how long. Decorated their pokeweed?

For those who may not know, this is pokeweed:




It's very common in rural areas. Rampant, in fact. It's just a big ugly weed and it gets pretty tall if you don't chop it down.


I looked and there it was. Two stark stalks of pokeweed standing in the front yard . . . . . with that fake green spiderweb stuff strung in between them. I don't know why it was so hilarious. I guess you just had to be there.

Yup, redneck. So.stinkin.funny.

Critter Wranglin'

We do a lot of that out here. Mike was moving hay in the barn and we came across a fat, black snake coiled up between bales. We didn't hesitate to see if it was a ratsnake or a cotton mouth (we have a lot of those since we're right by the creek), so we immediately went for the kill. Mike and I pulled it out as it was trying to slither down into the bales. It struck at us, and Mike asked "do you want to do this?" I really did, LOL. So he traded me the t-post for the shovel I was holding (it wasn't heavy enough) and I got rid of the stinkin' thing.







It was a good 5 feet long, as you can see. I checked its markings and went inside and checked my trusty snake website, http://oksnakes.org/. It turned out to be a black ratsnake. It was harmless and would've eaten rodents for us, but oh well. I'd rather not risk a cotton mouth hanging around in the barn where us and the kids are frequently, and where the goats go for shelter and hay. Snakes found in the barn will go without question. There turned out to be a good reason to eliminate him after all;




This momma banty was nesting just a few bales away and that mean old snake would've eaten her precious little eggs. Mike found her behind some bales. When he moved them and even raked around her, she never so much as flinched. Funny, because when I was working in the barn this spring I came upon her unknowingly and she chased me for getting too close to her newly-hatched brood. :-)