A thing of beauty

Remember what we found in the derelict shed? Well, I hope Snakey Sid stays away and sticks to the compost heap from now on.
Here is the finished shedy article, with some of the widest oak boards imaginable - so I don't want any of you city types nipping down here to wrench them off for your luxury loft flooring. They are for my turkeys, and the rest of the time for me to contemplate and enjoy.
That just leaves one derelict cow shed to sort and some sad ruined piggeries. Cow shed thinking starts this winter, action next summer.

Snake alert

There's a derelict chicken shed that borders two fields, close to the house. I suspect it was perfectly placed to allow poultry to wander and peck first here and then there. The corrugated tin has seen better days and the uprights are completely rotted through at ground level, but some of the old elm boards are as iron.
I need somewhere to stick the part-time turkeys, and it was a really good excuse to refurbish another of the sorry huts on the farm. Whilst I write it on the to do list the farm worker rolls his eyes and then sets to with digger, saws and angle grinder.
I go and inspect progress and bring the dogs. Fenn immediately rushes in and sits alert. She knows something's there. Of course, it's full of rat runs, so I keep well back and ignore the possibility of furry critters emerging from the earth floor. But then we all see it at the same time and there is a shared squeak/roar/shout. At waist height, along one of the timbers, a snake slides into view and then slips down to the floor (how does it do that, precisely, and how did it get up there in the first place?) and across to a corner of the shed. It's seriously fat and about four feet long.
It's a grass snake, so not poisonous but as it flickers its tongue and hisses, we squeak/roar/shout again and fail to take a better photo, just in case it's an adder (which I'm sure it's not, but still...). It's all of three metres from our copious compost heap so at some point this month or next it'll lay 40 or so eggs there.
This happened at 5pm this afternoon and every since my scalp keeps wrinkling and my skin shivering - I'm so pleased we have snakes, but must it really live quite so close to the house?

Are reptiles taking over the farm?

What with Hard-hattie making an impromptu appearance, I thought that would be it on the reptile front, but no. Zigzagging through the culm, trying to avoid the clumps of regenerating purple moor grass, I froze.
Sliding swiftly away from me was a thick, scaled, chevroned, slithering length of snake. Shivering with more fear than excitement, I blinked and it was gone.
It's so hard, without seeing the head, to know if it was a grass snake or an adder, but those chevrons were so marked, that I think it might have been an adder. And I was wearing sandals and shorts. Oh my.
(And no, I didn't hang around long enough to take a photo; I whistled my way to the edge of the culm and took my leave).

Creeping slithering things

I knew that there were grass snakes in Warwickshire but I have been in Devon for more than two years and had spotted no evidence of a slithering thing until now. My composure is therefore ruffled. I know they are harmless. I know they are one of the many wondrous species of wildlife that have unwittingly chosen me as their landlord. But now that I have seen a sloughed snakeskin a few yards from the house, I also know that the freshly clad previous inhabitant of said skin cannot be far away.
I have checked my trusty Readers Digest field guide to animals and it tells me they are common in lowland areas and found mainly in damp heaths, woods, lush pastures, damp grass and ditches where frogs kick about. The farm offers all of this, so just how many are out there, minding their own business but potentially causing me to lose mine?
A compost or dung heap is their favourite place for laying eggs and I cannot now visit the compost heap without an involuntary spine-shiver of fearful anticipation. And you should see the polytunnel - there is practically no visible ground, covered as it is with rampant cucumber, courgette, tomato and bean plants. Talk about the perfect amphibian hiding place. What do I do when I have to ferret amongst the cucumber plants to pick a beauty or two and mistake the soaker hose for something more animated?
There are nice damp jungly bits all over the farm where a snake could comfortably snooze and forage, conveniently hidden by the brambles that I am busy picking, no longer in pastoral crumble induced calm but in nervous hope that Hissing Sid will keep himself to himself.
Hundreds of eggs from multiple females may be laid in one place and the young are hatching right now. I have visions of plagues or at the very least, hysterics (my own) on a par with the commotion created by my coming face to face with rats en masse.