Real rain... a real pond... and another scorpion.

It has been raining for the past couple of days.... finally, a good long soaking pouring-down rain. We had actual puddles on the ground, and wonder of wonders, our pond is filled up half-way. It will take still more rain to fill up the nearly football-field sized pond, but it's well on its way to being a real pond now, rather than just a great big hole in the ground off in the pasture.

So nice to see the rains coming down.... we fell asleep to the sound of rain last night and woke up to the same sound. Amazing. Considering that it hasn't really rained here since the beginning of May, it was like a symphony-- now we know what the rain sounds like as it hits the roof, the porches, the windows, the gazebo.

Last night as I was listening to the rain, I had the back door open and Mickey Kitty and ShadowBaby were looking at Gatsby through the screen door. There's a tiny gap between the screen door and the sides of the doorway-- and I guess I should put up a little sign there that says "Welcome Every Crawling Creepy Thing." In a matter of minutes, I saw Mickey Kitty straighten up his back and his ears went straight up and he just sat there staring at the floor near the door-- and what was there? A scorpion. This is the second one that's been in the kitchen in the past couple of weeks.

For the last scorpion, I called my husband and he came running downstairs and killed it for me. Well, I can't keep on doing that..... and these scorpions aren't as big as I thought they would be, so I was ready for this one. I had my secret weapon underneath the kitchen sink--- a big can of hair spray. The biggest, cheapest, foulest-smelling hair spray I could find in WalMart-- the kind that you wouldn't ever want to put on your hair.

That kind of stinky, sticky hair spray, however, is the best bug-killing weapon you can have. It smells horrible, but not as bad as "Raid." I sprayed that scorpion till it could hardly move. I'm sure it was gasping for breath by the time I was done, and its legs were probably stuck together as well. I was all set to smash it with my shoe (first the spray, then the smash), but I sprayed it with so much hair spray that the blast of spray sent it flying out underneath the door and it fell through the wood slats of the porch.

I am hoping that when we get our chickens, this problem with the scorpions will be just a memory. Our neighbor D swears that the chickens will eat every last crawling and flying thing on our property, so I'm counting on that.

The chickens eat the scorpions. And the crickets, the bees, the wasps. And then we will eat the eggs. I'm trying not to keep thinking about that because it's going to gross me out.