This summer, I posted photos of young armadillos by our mailboxes and shared how Big Brother acted scared of them. Today, I was feeding the twins some lunch when my in-laws’ dogs started barking loudly, insistently, and very near the front of our house. I was concerned about an intruder because our front door was unlocked, so I went to check through the window and saw that the dogs had cornered something on our front porch. Worried it was a skunk, I peeked out the door, taking a small sniff before looking, and saw an armadillo.
I had to go back to the kitchen to grab my phone to take photos, and the armadillo had moved to the corner by our front door, so I had to wait a minute to open the door. I didn’t want that wild animal in my house! The dogs chased it through our flower beds and across the yard. It tried to hide behind our rose bush in the corner of our flower bed, but the dogs wouldn’t leave it alone. I called my mother-in-law to get the dogs away from it, so it could go home. She was teaching my son and his best friend at the time, so they came with her.
Over the last few months, Big Brother must have overcome his fear of armadillos because he wanted to touch this armadillo. I was holding both of the little girls, so I missed the photo/video, but it was hilarious. He knelt down to touch it while it was under the wagon and facing our front door. I think Big Brother was squatting when he touched the armadillo, and it jumped and kicked its back feet at him. Big Brother jumped/fell back almost to where I was standing on the sidewalk and took off running all the way down to his grandparents’ house. My mother-in-law and I laughed so hard! He was startled when the armadillo jumped, but he was just being silly by running. We laughed about it again when hubby got home from work. Country life can be extremely entertaining.
Last Friday evening, Big Brother saw a snake on our brick sidewalk. The snake had part of its tail in between a couple of bricks, so we weren’t sure how long it was at first. My son just sat and watched it for awhile. I even took the twins out to see it. It was just a garter snake, but I stayed well away from it. I gave Big Brother my cell phone to take photos, but most of them are blurry. These two are the clearest.
It was a small snake, and hubby chased it over to the pasture, but I think it came back today. One of the dogs found a snake in our flower bed this evening and chased it around the yard, barking at it. I was busy cooking dinner and didn’t have time to watch the show or take photos this time, but I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the snake(s).
We are enjoying living in the country and all that it entails (well, maybe not the skunks). In the second photo (above), you can see several aspects of our country life: firewood stacked for winter, a brush pile to be burned, the barn, the horses, tons of trees, and pastureland. Of course, most of that belongs to my in-laws, but we have our own firewood, brush pile, trees, and land, and we can enjoy the view of theirs. All of our kids love being outside, and I am happy that they can find plenty to do out here.
Chronicling Chaos 