Small-fry business meeting 2

Before we headed up the hills on Saturday to cut trees and run the MANLY MANLY souped up weedeater, we worked to clean up some old logs that were spread all over a lower field.  We gathered the metal and put it in one place and stacked some of the wood that just layed EVERYWHERE!

I knew that I had NO intention of picking up logs out of those piles with my bare hands.  I am  not that much of a farm girl and not that stupid.  I employed a rake and shovel – smart!

So, farms can be dangerous for people who don’t know where to look for danger.  I like to keep my kiddos in a bubble as much as possible and for as long as possible.  But, it isn’t safe to allow them to be ignorant of certain dangers. So, today we had a small fry business meeting with safety training.

SNAKES!

Where they like to hide – wood piles – RULE:  NO PLAYING ON OR NEAR WOODPILES!

What do we do when we see them – DO NOT TOUCH and RUN AWAY!

We talked about poisonous snakes can make us very sick if they bite us.  There is only one poisonous snake found in West Virginia – Copperheads.  We looked up a photo of a real live copperhead on Youtube and discussed how it looked, why we think it got it’s name, reviewed the snake rules.  Then we went to the table to color our snakes.  Grandma picked the colors so everyone would remember what color copperheads were.

We talked about how some snakes actually help farmers out by keeping the mouse populations down, but that doesn’t mean we can touch them.  They are still dangerous and we should leave them ALL alone.

We repeated the rules and Grandma made a sign.

Gotta keep the kiddos safe!

In theory, I am fine with letting the snakes live and just leave them alone.  I don’t really like to see them in real life though.  Personally saw two Saturday, Jim saw another, Andrea and Bernie saw yet another.  Too many for my taste!  Non-poisonous snakes can live all they want.  Sorry, but copperheads gotta go!  I am pretty sure the next time I go poking around in the wood pile I will have taller boots on and my trusty long handled rake.

Knee-high muck boots for everybody!  (Trying to NOT be a city girl, it’s a process)