Garden Update

I was so excited to go out one day and discover 3 big zucchinis growing in my garden! They hadn't been eaten either. Something has been getting into my garden periodically and munching on my beautiful zucchini and ticking me off! I go out every day and try to block places where I think they might be getting in. I have put stacks of wood and rocks around the chicken wire, but they are digging underneath or squeezing through. My other garden was a square foot garden and in a planter so it was off the ground and I didn't have this problem. For the 3 zucchinis to have survived was a miracle. I went out just tonight and discovered another one that had been chewed on, grrrrrrrr, makes me so mad! So, this time, I picked one even though I wasn't sure if it was ready and I wanted it to get bigger, but I decided I didn't want it being eaten too. I have several more growing out there, we'll see if they survive or not.

Poor zucchini :(
My 3 big, beautiful zucchini, 5 beans( I have now harvested about 60, enough for everyone to have a small helping for 1 meal), 1 sad little pea, and some cucumbers. I had a ton of cucumbers.
Joelle modeling my zucchini :)

What the Heck is This???

I have been finding these piles of "whatever" all over my yard. On first look, it looks like some kind of feces, like maybe rabbit pellets, but it isn't. I scraped at it with a stick and it appears to maybe be chewed up soil that a bug spit possibly spit out, I don't know. Someone told me they thought it was an ant hill, but trust me that's no ant hill. Unless, it's some freaky TX ant I don't know about. I asked some friends that had them in their yard as well, they suspected some insects. I found fresh ones in the garden as well. If you know what the heck this is please tell me, I have enough unknown variables that I have to deal with, I'd like to know what this one is please.

Freaky long, fat snake skin

Zeke went balistic one day out behind the shed. I found him attacking this snake skin. It was huge, luckily though it wasn't as big as the other 5 ft skins I've found, including one by our back porch. He's been going crazy trying to dig under the shed for a while and now I know why. Before we thought it was the rat that Chase had seen months ago, but now we know there are a few snakes living there, including a big one. I'm pretty sure there might be a den there because I saw some baby snakes out there when I took some trash out. The baby snakes were garter snakes.

This skin I couldn't tell what it was, so I went online to research and from what I researched and asked friends it appears to probably be a rat snake. Garter snakes don't get this big, and are brown or black. I also found out that it's not poisonous, which was my main concern in trying to identify it. You can tell from a snake's skin if it's venimous or not by looking underneath near the anus opening I guess, not sure exactly where that might be, I didn't venture that close to find out. I took the pictures and examined it on the computer later. Anyway, if you look at the scales where they change to tiny double side by side scales then you're ok, it's not venimous, if it stays in one singular section almost like a "v" then it's venimous. I figured because it was so big it probably wasn't a copperhead, which is really the only venimous snake with that coloring it could be. I was worried though because the other night while dropping off Bailey's friend, Bailey and I got out of the car and almost stepped on a snake just sitting there in the driveway. I ran back inside for a flashlight to identify it and it had already started to slither away into the grass. I freaked out, because it looked like a copperhead. It was probably a rat snake though, it was dark and I didn't get a very good look. I've been told if we have a lot of the nonvenimous snakes around, which we do, then it's a good sign, because they actually help to keep the venimous snakes away. I HATE snakes by the way!

Kids' Day in the Park

October 15th was our city's Kids' Day in the Park. I took all the kids and decided to check it out. It was very well planned with lots of fun activities for the kids. They had a live band (teenagers playing music that I grew up to in high school oddly enough) that was actually pretty good. They had a ton of prizes and free food for the kids. My kids got the following stuff...cotton candy, books, stuffed animals, candy, ice pops, twinkies, brownies, balloons, etc. The kids had a blast and thankfully, this was one of the times I didn't regret taking all of my kids out by myself in public.

Joelle eating her first sucker! She also let me put her hat on and kept it on-yeah :)
Bailey helping Emery at the fishing pond.
Cameron reeling in his fish.
Girls at the cotton candy stand with the clown.
Bailey with her friend Lauren from school.
All the kids with their loot and eating cotton candy.
Emery splashing in the fountain.
Joelle crashing in her stroller.
Bailey playing golf.
Emery modeling her face paint and prize of a package of Tampico ice pops that she won.
Bailey and Emery in their face paint. The 4H people that did their faces asked to take pictures of Bailey and Emery, so I took some too.
Emery golfing.
Addie golfing.
Cameron and his crazy glasses.
Addie with her drink and face painted butterfly.

Zeke Finally Catches a Snake

A few weeks ago while waiting for Emery's bus Zeke got all excited and started barking. He only barks at snakes and snake skin and occasionally at other dogs. So, I figured it was another snake skin, because he had proven useless the other time there was a snake a few feet away from him and he just rolled around in the grass like a big idiot. Well, I instructed the girls to wait a distance away while I went to see what it was. There in the grass, sure enough was a snake, I was fully expecting just some snake skin again. I put Emery on her bus and then went in back to do some gardening and let Joelle play. I was pretty sure it was just a garter snake, but it was hard to make out in the grass. I went back inside when I was done and grabbed the camera. It was a checkered garter snake which I have seen plenty of on our property, usually smaller, this was good sized, but I've seen one bigger. Zeke must have barked at that stupid thing for an hour. I finally told him to leave it and come inside. I was happy that he was actually able to corner it and keep it at bay, before I just thought he was all bark. I went back out though to see if it was dead, I didn't think it was dead, but injured and sure enough it was gone. I think it was playing dead. I don't understand why it didn't just get away, it was by all this shrubbery and rocks and probably could have escaped. I'm just hoping now that the weather is cooler and we don't see our snake friends around any more for a while. I posted a video of me coming out to get Zeke, it was really windy, so there's a lot of back ground noise.

Joelle and her Geometric Hat

Bailey made Joelle a hat out of some plastic geometric shapes.
Making a silly face.

Grandma and Grandpa Fox Visit

I'm backlogged on blogging again, it quickly gets away with me. I have a ton before this post as well, but thought I'd at least go back to this point. Chase's parents were able to come and visit us the end of Sept./first week of Oct. It was so nice for them to make such a long drive and spend the week with us. It's rare for us to have visitors so we really enjoyed it. The kids were very excited and had a lot of fun. I didn't take very many pictures, so sorry.

Oddly, enough I'm starting out with a picture of our first produce from our garden, after the basil. These cucumbers were rescued by my mother-in-law. Chase's parents' first night included a "welcome to TX storm" that ended up blowing our trampoline from the back yard into the front yard and right through my smaller garden. Luckily, I told my father-in-law he could park under the carport where Chase usually parks or the trampoline would have hit the car.
Emery showing off the cucumbers.
At the Alamo...4 oldest kids still in school.
Joelle examining the cannons.
Grandpa and Joelle resting under a pecan tree.
The green pods have pecans inside them. Probably my favorite nut, which is a good thing because Seguin, where we live, is famous for the pecans and they're everywhere. This past weekend was Pecan Festival here in Seguin.
Grumpy Cam, Grandma, Emery, Bailey, and Addison playing Aggravation.