A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

When Beekeeper Brian and I were first married, we lived on the second floor of an apartment in Houston. I clearly remember standing at the bottom of the stairs one day with a basket of laundry completely terrified of a grasshopper on the stairs.  I stood there until it hopped away and then I quickly ran up the stairs and into our apartment.

Fast forward almost 33 years and I now think nothing of scooping a cockroach out of the chicken waterer or walking through the bees on my way to the chicken yard.  What brought about this transformation?

I’m not really sure.  It is either growing older (and wiser) or living on Miller Farm where there are an abundance of critters.

In any case, it serves me well to be less afraid of creepy crawly things.

A couple of weeks ago, I was weeding in the succulent bed around the mail box when I felt something crawling on my foot.

I have overcome my fear of most things, however, I have a healthy respect for fire ants. I thought I might be on the menu for lunch that day.

I quickly removed my shoe to discover…a small rough earth snake.

I watched him for a minute then decided he was unhappy in the gutter so I gently picked him up and put him back on the dirt.  He quickly burrowed to safety.

There was a point in my life when I would have hurt myself trying to get away from that snake.  Then I would have refused to check the mail ever again for fear of another snake encounter.

Life is much calmer for me now.  I’m thankful for that.  The world seems to have more and more things of which to be frightened.  I just chose to be fearless.