Official Post About Lifestyle Changes
The date is January 28, 2021.
I have not had chickens for a while. It will be 2 years in August. I have been meaning to write something here about all of it, but I either have not had time, or the willpower to go through with it. I was in grieving.
In June of 2019, I took a trip from my shared homestead in Mississippi to Colorado to do some long distance hiking. I left all of my animals in the care of my ex husband’s mother and her then boyfriend.
I trusted them to at least do the bare minimum in my animal’s basic care.
That didn’t happen. They failed night after night to close and lock the coop’s door. They wouldn’t change their water during the day and they did not collect eggs.
When I had service on my phone during the hike, I checked in with them to find out that because they had not closed or locked the coop door at night, several birds were “missing”, with more missing every day.
Instead of simply closing the door and providing a safe space for my dear, darling animals to sleep at night, they decided to buy a game camera to see what was happening to them at night.
Their reasoning had absolutely zero logic, and I was pretty pissed.
They found that raccoons were simply just waltzing into the coops and grabbing birds. The raccoons would drag them away into the woods and feast.
By the time our trip was almost over, all of my ducks were gone. There were only a few chickens left, and the guinea fowl were all intact due to roosting 50ft up in oak trees. My cat was also “missing”.
I was heartbroken, devastated. I had spent so much money, time, energy, and love to build this flock. I wanted to provide my “family” and myself with sustainable, renewable food in case of a natural disaster. No one seemed to value my efforts, or even care to see what my end goal was.
On top of grieving for the loss of my feathered babies, my then husband’s younger brother decided to GO OFF on me during our drive back to Mississippi. He claimed I was selfish, psychotic, uncaring, and manipulative. He screamed at me while we were all stuck in the car. He called me a bitch, he called me a liar, he called me a leech. I was stunned in silence. I had been struggling with my mental health for years, and had contemplated suicide more times than I could count. So, it is no surprise that while we were driving 70mph on the interstate, I seriously contemplated opening the car door and leaping out into traffic.
I turned to my husband, my partner, the love of my life, my support system, to back me up. Defend me. Tell his brother that he was wrong. My husband did nothing of the sort. He remained silent as the verbal barrage from his brother continued.
Everything clicked for me then. My mother in law was a complete nutcase, she blamed me for all of my husband’s shortcomings. She viewed me as a failure for not being the perfect housewife. She only saw me as a burden on her son’s happiness. My husband maintained an emotional distance from me for several years. He refused to be intimate towards me. He never showed an interest in me, my thoughts, my feelings. He never stood up for me or was proud to show me off. He never commended my strengths and triumphs, he only pointed out what he viewed were my failures. My brother in law was more of a nutcase than his mother, physically abusing his dog and neglecting his cat, leeching off of his mother and getting handouts at every possible opportunity, spending his days smoking hundreds of dollars of marijuana, drinking booze, playing videogames.
I had no social life, I wasn’t allowed to have a social life.
I had no friends I could hang out with, all of my friends were online.
No matter how much I did for these people and how much I excelled at everything I did, nothing was ever enough. I was never enough.
No wonder I struggled with mental health, eh?
I came to this realization instantaneously, and demanded to be dropped off at my dad’s house in Westminster, CO.
I had none of my personal belongings besides my hiking and camping stuff. I didn’t care, I just had to get away from these toxic monsters.
My husband and I loosely decided that this would be a “break” for our relationship, and that he would go back to MS to work and save up to move here with me. I agreed and I began working and saving up myself.
We both knew he was never going to come here. We were never going to be together again.
We remained in close contact for a few months after the separation. But the contact and our conversations became fewer and less substantial.
One night, as I was walking home from work, I called and told him that I thought we should break up. He admitted to me that he had removed his wedding ring over three weeks prior. I was understandably hurt by that, but I did understand.
He also informed me that all of the birds were gone or dead except for a couple roosters.
I was more devastated by the loss of my birds than the loss of my marriage. If that doesn’t tell you enough, I don’t know what does!!
I asked him if we could keep in contact, and he told me he did not want to talk to me or hear from me for several years. I was once again hurt by this, but with his own mental health issues, I again, understood. He did say he can see us being friends in the future, but now that its been some time, I don’t want to be friends with him. I want the best for him, but I can’t bring myself to expose my mentality to his toxicity and negativity.
I asked again and again, over a period of months, for him to return my belongings. He kept putting it off. I told him I was going to drive down there myself and gather everything i could and dispose of the rest.
He agreed, initially, then banned me from coming only after I requested the time off from work and had friends to accompany me on the journey, He promised he’d send all my stuff in several shipments after he sold my car. I told him he could keep the profit from the sale of my car and use it to send me my stuff.
He ended up sending me ONE box of my stuff. And most of it wasn’t even mine. I was appalled and disgusted that he’d be so careless and inconsiderate.
I sent him messages and requested SPECIFIC items after I received the first box. I got no reply, and no more packages to this day have been sent.
He and his family stole my property, killed my pets, and broke my heart.
Thieves, liars, and extremists, the lot of them.
I grieve daily for the loss of my animals and the torture I was put through for nearly 6 years.
All of that out of the way, let me move on to tell you what this blog will now feature.
I have obviously had a change in lifestyle. I no longer live on homesteading land, I live in a roomy two bedroom apartment with my AMAZING fiance.
My love of chickens, I discovered, was a love for reptiles in general. Cuz birds are reptiles and all that jazz.
When I met my fiance, I was already blown away by his attitude, confidence, and view on life right off the bat! He inspired me, made me want to be better to myself.
Meeting him felt weird, at first. It felt weird because I was waiting for this amazing person to... have a catch. There’s gotta be a red flag somewhere. And if there isn’t... he is probably a psychopath who will eventually turn on me and kill me. No one is that... good.
So I thought to myself, “Welp, gotta find out. I’ll go to his house!”
He had a couple little snakes in his room which I demanded to play with. He happily got them out and I was like “THAT’S the catch? Nah, this just convinces me this guy is... my kind of guy.”
I’ve had a love of snakes since early childhood. Not an interest of passion, but I truly loved interacting with and watching them. I’ve never had an innate fear of any insect, (exclude honeybee, because I didn’t know better at 6 years old), or animal. I love them all and everything they do to contribute. All they experience.
I used to catch wild garter snakes and rat snakes in nets, pet them, show them to my mother occasionally to freak her out, and release them. Then watch them.
There were a mating pair of Oteekee Corn Snakes in my HS yard. Every summer we’d see them, out and about hunting, hiding, climbing... growing. They were bright red and jet black with specks of yellow. I could tell these guys were pretty smart and maybe there was more to snakes than I really thought about ever.
So, being sold on this amazing guy, we up and moved in together. Nice. My paycheck kept going up and up. I was saving a ton. I wanted a car and an apartment as soon as possible.
I got bonus after bonus for working hard at my job and everyone hitting labor targets.
Both got steady jobs. Nice.
There’s uh, a lot of room in this new place. Nice.
Hey it’s my birthday and I can get myself a snake. I have more than enough for supplies and the animal itself.
I browsed on morphmarket for what felt like ages....
I had no idea that there were.... so many complicated genetics with ball pythons. I was highly interested, because if you know me, you know I’m interested in genetics and selective breeding.
I found there were THOUSANDS of genetic combinations, each with unique names. It was like alien code. The animals were beautiful but I had no idea what I was really looking at.
One night while going to our local reptile store to get feeder rats, I was looking around at all the glass window babies, as I usually do.
I made my way around the scorpions, tarantulas, cave scorpions, frogs, lizards, the store’s companion burmese python, and my eyes landed on a little... adorable puppy-eyed baby ball python. The signage stated that it was a Puma. Seemed simple enough. Easy name to remember. I looked into the glass at the lil noodle, and talked all baby talk and shit. The sweet little thing came right up to scope at me, then yawned.
I called an employee over and said I’d like to handle this animal right here. The employee obliged and I fell in love. Sexed as male. Easy buy.
I cried on the way home, It was amazing. I have one picture on here of him a few days after I got him. His name is Mallow, and he is bigger now, but still just as sweet.
So yeah. It went from there. Now, including the boa and ball python that are my fiance’s, and Mallow, we have added 3 more to our family. We are done now, as these animals may live a loooooong time. And they require space and attention just like any other pet. They’re not expensive, and they’re low maintenance care is nearly brainless if you set it up right. They’re statistically and actually safer than dogs or cats, and are absolutely therapeutic and entertaining.
This blog will from this day forward be dedicated to snake content, reptile content, and a lot more fun, actually good pictures. I will also share genetic related stuff I find relevant.
Not having a shitty phone camera is pretty great, tbh.
TLDR: No more homestead. Ex is evil (yeah yeah), New place new animal new me. SNAKES! SNAKES!!!! SNAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKEEEEESSSSS!
I know this post is just for me but whatever, if I make myself laugh. Cool. G’night.
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