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I assure you that I didn’t intend on this newsletter to be all about poisonous snakes! But that is what we are facing currently at the ranch and our life here is what I share. So as we feel consumed by this new threat, we share some of that with you and remind you to always keep the potential encounter of a rattlesnake in the back of your mind, especially those in Central Oregon. With all of the current construction, dens could be disturbed, snakes displaced, and you might just run into one when you never have before!

This is quite the newsletter I have ended up with this week. Snake bites(read on), a new how-to on butchering a cabbage, and then we finish with the almighty booby.

Sorry, NOT sorry.

I hope you don’t come away with snakey nightmares but do try your hand at butchering cabbage into kraut, and that you get a kick out of all the tata’s!

Rattlesnake #2 this year and total for our time at Big Rock Ranch. There have only been a few seen over the decades by our neighbors. We think it is partly because of the freshly planted alfalfa field lining part of our northern property line; snakes have an affinity for alfalfa fields, it turns out! Nathaniel was weed eating and mowing the lawn and had to have went right past or over it, we are so thankful he didn’t get bit! Clancy and Monty had played in the area before mowing. It must really take a lot to get these snakes upset enough to coil and strike. Way to close for comfort to have this in our yard under our apple tree though. This one found the sharp end of our shovels.

Getting our ducks in a row before cold winter weather. We have been organizing and decluttering so we know where and what tools we have for when we need them! Cleaning up the barn and trying to sort all of the tools we own made me conscious of just how much diversified knowledge we have of so many different animals and equipment.

Nathaniel is working away on the interior tongue and groove walls of the tiny house! With the help and support of visiting family we moved the tiny house into Nathaniel’s workshop so it is near all of his tools and to make use of these massive, handy garage doors!

Watch the IG Reel here!

We’ve been extra inspired to work on getting our barn in shape so that we can enjoy our two horses more! Changes are coming to Big Rock and the horses are one of our main focuses.

Porter, Nathaniel’s Bay mount pictured, was BIT by a RATTLESNAKE. He is making a full recovery as horses handle the venom well. We believe the snake was under their water trough and he might have stepped on the snake while coming up for a drink. We found three pairs of potential punctures on his front right leg. Swelling the first few days caused extreme lameness but he seems to have turned the corner and is walking out nicely and the swelling is reduced.

The neat thing about horses is that once bitten, they usually don’t react again, which will be good if he was struck again and in the face. The only time horses have an increased risk of death is if their nasal passages swell closed from their reaction to being bitten in the face. They can’t breathe through their mouth and can suffocate. We will need to have tubing on hand that can be placed in each nostril to help keep airways open and hopefully avoid the usual intervention: tracheotomy, for our other horse, Boe.

Thankfully we live less than 15 minutes away from our local hospital and dog veterinarian in the event one of us or Monty should be stuck. We do live in an area that does look like rattler country but over the decades very few have been encountered here. The piece of mind that we have experienced the last five years is now gone and we are on high vigilance now. Our sanity is on the edge, haha. Winter can come anytime!

Sites of what we hoped couldn’t be rattlesnake bites but by process of elimination we now feel certain are snake bites.

Fri, Aug 13

Simple Guide to Making Sauerkraut

Butchering a murdered cabbage: preserving heads of cabbage for winter nourishment in 10 easy steps.

Sauerkraut is super easy to make.

Chop cabbage
Weigh chopped cabbage in grams, multiply the weight of

Birdie Handmade Giveaway winner!

Remember when I did my first giveaway for newsletter subscribers? Here is Clara with her tea towel made just for her! Clara inspired me to make tata towels(coming soon!), she makes beautiful boob mugs, as Clancy enthusiastically shows below!

A Clara Hanson one-of-a-kind boob mug. Photo cred Lori Potter.

Enjoy the last month of summer and make sure to stock up on sunshine for the winter ahead. (Obviously you don’t have to be as extreme as Clancy but atleast have face and full arm exposure without sunscreen for a minimum of 20 minutes everyday from 11am-2pm and you’ll be generating adequate amounts of vitamin D in your skin!)

Thanks for opening and reading another Big Rock Newsletter!