{"id":1863,"date":"2016-04-27T14:29:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T19:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/?p=1863"},"modified":"2016-04-27T14:54:20","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T19:54:20","slug":"thursday-april-21-snakes-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/?p=1863","title":{"rendered":"Thursday,  April 21 &#8211;  Snakes Alive!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a fairly good night&#8217;s rest, we were up at 5;30 to prepare for the day. Larry decided to go out to the site and try to evaluate things and catch up on what he needs to know about the transmitter site and the antenna expansion. Their day begins early and he needed to be ready to go by 6:50 a.m. The girl next door, Monja Schiller, who was looking after the Kimber&#8217;s chickens, was coming over early\u00a0to show me what needed to be done to care for the chickens.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1885\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120460-Chickens-roosting.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1885\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1885\" src=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120460-Chickens-roosting-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"These chickens don't like to stay in their pen at night. They like to roost on top of the coop.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120460-Chickens-roosting-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120460-Chickens-roosting-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120460-Chickens-roosting.jpg 816w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1885\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">These chickens don&#8217;t like to stay in their pen at night. They like to roost on top of the coop.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We are staying in the Kimber&#8217;s house. Caring for the twelve chickens, four of them\u00a0 roosters, is one of the things I (Virginia) have been asked to do while here in Swaziland. (Only 3 of the hens have laid eggs so far, so I am thinking it is about time for chicken and noodles. Yum!).\u00a0 They also have some guppies outside in a small tank that need fed once a week and water added to their &#8216;pond&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Well, this morning, Monja, showed me what to do with the chickens and we gathered an egg.\u00a0 Later I heard a hen cackling and bragging about having laid an egg and I just ignored her.\u00a0 A little later, I heard a lot of hollering, cackling and fluttering out in the chicken coop.\u00a0 I decided to check and see if ther was a hawk or something trying to catch a hen.\u00a0 I went out and saw that the noise was coming from three chickens in an inner cage.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1882\" style=\"width: 267px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Snake.26-April-by-Mark.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1882\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1882\" src=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Snake.26-April-by-Mark-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"Grandson Mark's depiction of the snake in the hen pen. Pretty much accurate.\" width=\"257\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Snake.26-April-by-Mark-257x300.jpg 257w, https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Snake.26-April-by-Mark.jpg 684w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 257px) 100vw, 257px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1882\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grandson Mark&#8217;s depiction of the snake in the hen pen. Pretty much accurate.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I went over to check and see what the commotion was and there was a SNAKE! crawling on the screen.\u00a0 He\u00a0 quickly slithered down and then came around the side of the cage. In the meantime the neighbors had heard the noise and came running. They were armed with long sticks metal pipes and other similar weapons. We let all the chickens out of the three cages into the yard.\u00a0 We never found the snake, but a snake catch and release lady was supposed to come by and check the cage for safety and then we could try to separate the chickens and put them in their <a href=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120447-Chickens.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1884 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120447-Chickens-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"#P1120447 Chickens\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120447-Chickens-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120447-Chickens-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/P1120447-Chickens.jpg 816w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>proper cages. (Snake lady never showed up).\u00a0 So much for my first morning in Swaziland!\u00a0 I did run in to get the camera, but the snake never showed up again.\u00a0 We think it may have been a spitting cobra, but not sure.<\/p>\n<p>One family, here on the &#8216;compound&#8217; is on vacation.\u00a0 Another is preparing for furlough and the third is home-schooling with a very ridged schedule.\u00a0 So, I am pretty much left to myself at the moment although I am sure that will change soon.<\/p>\n<p>Larry took two suitcases of equipment to the transmitter site today and has another suitcase of equipment for John Stavropolous and his wife, who are missionaries with New Tribes. They will be visiting in Swaziland later and will be our neighbors for a few days.\u00a0 His parents, South Africans,\u00a0 are also with TWR.\u00a0 We have known them for many years and our children spent their Swaziland years growing up together. They have visited us several times in the U.S and John would come visit at various times while he was attending New Tribes Mission School in Michigan.\u00a0 We enjoyed having him around.<\/p>\n<p>I brought a suitcase of crafts I have collected\u00a0 for kids to do and gifts for some of the adults.\u00a0 I am looking forward to doing the crafts with the children.\u00a0 I did one for myself, a fascinator head band.\u00a0 It was fun and cute.\u00a0 I think the girls will have fun making it.\u00a0 Our suitcases will be MUCH lighter on the trip home and perhaps fewer.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow, Friday, is a holiday here as is Monday. Friday is the king&#8217;s birthday and\u00a0 Monday is flag day. When we lived here, everything closed for holidays, Saturday afternoons and Sundays, but times are changing.<\/p>\n<p>It is hot here. One of the Swazis was saying that it was supposed to be getting cooler, but it&#8217;s not!! We did get the ceiling fan going in the bedroom, for which I am very thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a fairly good night&#8217;s rest, we were up at 5;30 to prepare for the day. Larry decided to go out to the site and try to evaluate things and catch up on what he needs to know about the transmitter site and the antenna expansion. Their day begins early and he needed to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-swaziland-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1863"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1889,"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions\/1889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcguirereport.mcguireclan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}