Viewing post #1060634 by MISSINGROSIE

dragonfly53 said:Rosie,
Just a thought, the straw bales may discolor your decking as they rot. Have you thought about using ebuckets- theres a thread somewhere on here about that.

Regarding snakes, I have a story. Our deck is about 7 feet off the ground and one year we thought it would be nice to attach a birdhouse to the outside railing in the corner. So we did and had a beautiful set of Bluebirds starting a family. When the babies hatched, it was cute to hear them chirping for food and to watch the parents going back and forth with bugs and worms. I also had a planter on the inside corner rail with a lot of tall and bushy plants which hid the birdhouse from our view.
One day I went out about 11am to water and realized there was no chirping, so I thought the chicks had flown away. I went to water the planter and, looking up at me as I was pouring on the water, was a approximately 12 foot long blacksnake!

I backpedaled as fast as I could, almost killing myself on the deck chairs! I finally fell on my backside and, before putting any other parts of me in contact with anything, checked the planter to see where the snake was. He was just calmly lying in the planter looking at me, probably having a laugh in his little snakey mind.

DH came outside to see what had happened because I think I might have screamed, just a little. He walked over to the snake and noticed that the side of the snakes body was rather lumpy in 3 or 4 places, and surmised that that lumpiness was most likely the result of the snake having a lovely meal of bluebird chicks. Needless to say, the birdhouse was removed to a tree shortly afterwards.

I shouldn't laugh...the baby birds and all....but I have this bad reaction with laughing when people fall ..I can't help it.. And I got this image in my head of you flying backwards...with the bucket...what a sight and a racket!!

When I was much younger..a girl really......father slipped on ice in front of St. Sylvesters and fell RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME... I was horrified.....him in his priestly robes (he scared the hell outta me anyway) I TRIED to pick him up.. I tried...I was laughing so hard ..my skinny arms like limp noodles. He kept slipping and hollering..and his robes were tangling. The old coot was probably soused anyway.. Oh my...I had forgotten that..