Here’s a sampling of the interesting/dangerous wildlife I’ve run into lately:

Near the beginning of August, I came upon several large black widow spiders within a week:

On August 10, I found a 3 foot long Eastern kingsnake in one of the vacant stalls. It spent the day in a glass aquarium tank for my younger siblings to look at before release. When I released it in the pasture, neither Dixie nor the goats showed any fear of it; they stuck their noses right in it’s face and got bit (that didn’t deter them because of the snake’s blunt teeth though):

The next day, I saw a five lined skink…those common lizards with blue tails that break off that you see all the time, right? What’s the big deal? Well, this one had a forked tail!!! Apparently it’s tail had been injured but wasn’t completely severed and grew a second tail out of the wound:

Two days later (August 13th) I saw the first Copperhead that I’ve seen in 6 years sitting in the middle of the path to the buck pen! About 18 inches long, I almost stepped on it because it blended in so well! 😯 Thankfully I had a shovel beside me leaning against the fence, and was able to promptly decapitate it. That gave me the opportunity to teach my younger siblings about how to identify and avoid venomous serpents.