Like a sacrificial lamb

That's a long nope rope

It's been a long week at our house. The little wall-licking boy children brought home a nasty and very contagious case of Norovirus which means we're all stuck here, recovering with Gatorade and saltines.

As during the pandemic, I am grateful we have a small farm during a family lockdown because at least we can close the gates and send the children outside to play. Although they're gross little disease vectors, the kids bounce back much faster than us adults and can't be cooped up all the time. My husband has taught the boys the new phrase: "puke and rally," which has been our rallying cry throughout our time together. Delightful.

In addition, my husband brought the boys home tank tops last week, so they're also walking around flexing and repeating: "Welcome to the gun show!" to anyone who will listen.

I'm sure to be getting calls about these new catch-phrases when the kids are back in school.

At least we're all on the mend at this point. I'm ready just to have just one normal week where nothing goes wrong.

Speaking of something going wrong, I was heading out to the goat pen this morning when I saw the massive bull snake I have run into many times over the years since we lived here. Although I knew intellectually that she won’t hurt me, the core part of my deep brain panicked.

Watching a massive snake in my path caused me to jump and promptly fall over. One of the disadvantages of being tall is that I am also very tippy. The high center of gravity will get you every time.

It’s not fun to be the human version of a fainting goat, but that’s one of the side effects of being an uncoordinated giant person.

If you’ve never seen or heard of a fainting goat, they’re literally goats that fall over when scared. Fear locks up their legs and they topple like statues when stressed. It’s a hilarious and somewhat creepy phenomenon to behold.

Fainting goats were bred to be, and I am not kidding about this, sacrificial lambs. They are kept with more expensive livestock so that when a predator approaches the flock, they fall over so the other animals can escape. They get devoured first, saving their more valuable herdmates.

This is not entirely dissimilar from the way that mama wallabies handle predators. Female wallabies will take their joeys out of their pouch and toss them at their would-be devourers as they run from danger. The reasoning, I assume, is that if you can distract predators with a quick meal you can make more babies later. Sick.

So, anyway, I saw the massive snake this morning and then fell over. She’s a beautiful snake who has lived here for years. There’s no shortage of food out in the field for her, and I appreciate the help keeping the mice at bay. That doesn’t mean she can keep me from jumping, though.

She seemed to be moving slower this morning than I remember in the past.

This morning, because we’re still all home and the boys have to get out, I charged the batteries on the Power Wheels.

Power Wheels are the best presents our kids have ever gotten because they will drive them in circles around the property until the batteries die. I can work on the front porch and the kids drive by about once every 4.5 minutes in a constant loop.

Over the course of the day I charged batteries and the kids ran them out at least three times. I would trudge out to the dead plastic cars, carry their “car batteries” out to the office, charge them again, and we would start the process all over.

One of the last trips to the goat pen this afternoon, I saw the snake again. She was in the middle of the driveway. I fell over. Again. Like the sacrificial lamb, I can’t seem to overcome that initial startled panic.

This time though, despite my dramatic fall, she didn’t slither off like so many time before. She was still. Too still.

There was a zero percent chance I would get close enough to figure out what was going on, but I looked and didn’t see any part of her that would have been smashed by one of our trucks. My next thought was that maybe she finally met her demise to a Power Wheel doing the constant circuit.

So, I did what any tough urban farmer would do when faced with a giant snake in the middle of their driveway - I texted my husband, Mark, to deal with it.

If he was unavailable I could have forced myself to handle it if there was no other choice, but in the deliniation of tasks that naturally occurs in a marriage has put massive snakes firmly on his side of the ledger.

Initially I think Mark agreed with me that death by Power Wheel, an undiginified snake death, was the cause of death. But, because he had affection for the snake, Mark conducted his own slapdash necropsy.

He found nothing wrong. No squished segments. No obvious source of trauma. Mark then went so far as to measure the length of the snake - 69”. That’s a loooong nope rope.

Mark finally concluded that the massive snake died of old age - and even got a little sentimental about it before tossing her in the trash.

Tonight after using the last of the cottage cheese for the boys, I took the container out to the bin to toss it out and was greeted by the snake for the last time - I jumped up and promptly fell over - third time today.