Tales from WannaBea Farm

Wandering through the flea market I spied guinea keets. They were just the cutest little things, but they’re kind of like the “Ugly Duckling” in reverse, because when they get grown they look nothing like they did as babies. They are UGLY! They look kind of like Nazi helmets running around the yard. But, they keep down the ticks, grasshoppers and such. So I bought 6 of them and put them in a box in the back of the car. Now, let me tell you, DON’T ever do that! At least not without a gas mask. Those tiny, tiny creatures stink! I believe they would have won first place in a stink contest against a skunk.

”Hi Honey”, I called when I got home, “Come see what I found at the flea market”. After looking in the box, my poor unsuspecting husband looked at me as if I had lost my mind. But he immediately got busy altering the wire dog crate by wrapping it with chicken wire so they couldn’t get out and I sat them next to the back door so they would get used to people coming and going around them. After a few weeks I moved them, cage and all, into the chicken house for another week and after a week in there, I just opened the door of the cage. They ventured a little farther from the chicken house each day, and after another week, I removed the cage. They came back to the chicken house every night until they were older and then started roosting in the trees most nights.

The next spring my husmentum. band called home to remind me of something and not thinking, mentioned that he had seen some white keets at a feed store in Crockett. Poor guy! Will he ever learn? That same evening when he came home he was greeted by 6 white keets in the cage by the back door! But this time I had brought them home in the back of a pick up truck. Let the people traveling behind me smell the “Eau de Guinea” and maybe they won’t follow so close.

Two days after I had moved them into the chicken house I went out to feed all my critters and as I started towards the chicken house I spotted the SNAKE. BIG snake! Stupid snake too! He was coiled up on top of the cage and had run his head outside and down to the bottom of the cage before sticking his head through the chicken wire and then through the wire cage. He had already killed one of the keets and the rest were all huddled in the far corner of the cage trying to get away from him.

I was furious! Partly because he had killed my keet and partly because, why did he have to do this when Wayne wasn’t home? Running to the barn, looking for something to kill him with, I found the axe, grabbed it and ran back. Raising the axe and telling that snake just what I was going to do to him, I hit him as hard as I could. Wham! And you can just go ahead and laugh, but it DID just bounce right off of him! Dumbfounded, I just stood there for a moment staring at him. He didn’t even move, just turned his head and looked at me, not a bit concerned. Cursing him with all my might, I raised that axe again and whopped him once more. He didn’t care, just glanced off of him again. Was I in the “Twilight Zone” or what? My husband later said that it was because he was cushioned by the thick layer of hay on the floor under him, but he later sharpened the axe.

After the third hit with the axe I gave up and returned to the barn, looking for a more effective weapon. Aha! I spotted the limb loppers. I would cut him in half!

Positioning the loppers just outside the cage where his body was going through, I discovered that they wouldn’t go all the way around him. I told you he was big! It looked like I was going to have to use them like scissors. All this time he is still ignoring me and trying to reach another keet. I pushed down on the handles, cutting into his side. Now THAT got his attention. He raised his head up, turned to look at me and opened his mouth, showing me his double row of teeth, threatening me. I got another bite with the loppers. Now he decided he better get out of my cage, but instead of sliding back out the way he went in, he turned, came around the wire of the cage and then between the cage and the chicken wire and got stuck. I told you he was stupid. In the meantime, I am now desperately trying to get the loppers off of him but they are stuck too!

Thankfully, as I was trying to figure out what to do next my white knight, er, husband called and when I told him what was going on he rode to my rescue and came home! The snake was over 6 feet long when we measured it.

Number three son is now wearing him as a hat band and had the nerve to inform me that he would have preferred a rattlesnake, copperhead or something a little more colorful.