FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: JANUARY 4, 2014

TWIN GOATS WELCOME IN THE NEW YEAR

These little cuties were born late on New Year’s night. The black one is a little boy and the “paint” is a girl.

We still have at least 25 mom­my goats about to bin­go. Should be an “inter­est­ing month” with babies run­ning all around.

RAINY SEASON PROVOKES NATURAL DANGERS

Dan­ger exists in the bush on a dai­ly basis from snakes, but “ all dan­ger­ous slith­er­ing crit­ters” increase their move­ments great­ly in the rainy sea­son. Our area suf­fers from flash floods, pour­ing 1 to 2 inch­es (25 to 50 cm) of rain in one to 2 hours. This fills the RAT TUNNELS with water, dri­ving out those using them for shel­ter. Snakes chase rats into the holes and then stay there to digest their prey. Our huge 5–6 inch ARMORED BLACK SCORPION also uses the rat holes for refuge. We nev­er see them except in the rainy sea­son when water fills their holes, and then out they come in droves, look­ing for dry homes.

I found this 5 inch Armored Black Scorpion near my back door this week.

We nice­ly mea­sured and took its pho­to before crush­ing it with a machete. These scor­pi­ons have a huge stinger that packs a mild ven­om which is rarely fatal to humans. A bite to an adult pro­vides about 24 hours of pain and mis­ery. Going bare­foot in the rainy sea­son is NOT recommended.

BE ALERT TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU

I was out­side in my dri­ve­way just min­utes before I sat down to write this blog. I noticed move­ment up the road a bit. RECOGNIZE and REACT, is our mot­to around here, for hes­i­ta­tion can get you killed. I yelled COBRA, COBRA, COBRA, and my guard, Daude, came run­ning. But our snake killing bam­boo WAS MISSING!!!!! He ran for a short pole about 8 ft (2.4 meters) long, and took off after the snake. It was a BLACK MAMBA, mea­sur­ing 6 ft. (1.8 meters). I am not afraid to go after a snake with a 12 ft. (4 meter) pole, but NO WAY would I lit­er­al­ly run with the snake, hav­ing only an 8 ft. pole in my hands. That mam­ba saw him com­ing, raised it head about a foot (30 cm) above the ground and raced for the trees. Daude inter­sect­ed it, and hit it a back break­ing blow about halfway down it’s body, just before it reached the thick brush. It took 4 more blows before it stopped strik­ing at him.

DAUDE SHOWS HIS “DEAD” BLACK MAMBA TO THE CAMERA.

I have tried to teach these guys that they need to SEVER the head, and not just crush it to make sure the snake is dead (espe­cial­ly when hit­ting in in soft dirt). But these guys are a bit hard head­ed when it comes to chang­ing their snake killing tech­niques. Right after tak­ing this pho­to, Daude dug a hole and put the snake in it, leav­ing the head attached to the body. The snake’s spas­tic death move­ments caused the snake’s body to PUSHED THROUGH the dirt, and come out of the hole. You nev­er saw some­one move as fast as he did, think­ing that snake was still alive. I got a good laugh out of it, and told them “See, I told you to CUT the head off. Next time do it and then you know it’s dead.”

It pays to stay prayed up for you nev­er know what you’ll come across around the next cor­ner. We have dai­ly devo­tions with all our work­ers, and we always include SAFETY for every­one in our clos­ing prayer. Daude is a 19 year old enthu­si­as­tic Chris­t­ian, and his angels were def­i­nite­ly on duty today. Going after a big mam­ba with a short stick is not the wis­est thing to do, but the Lord pro­tect­ed him as the snake struck at him sev­er­al times while he was try­ing to kill it.

Just 2 days ago, one of my non-Chris­t­ian work­ers was dig­ging a drainage ditch behind my house when he was struck at by a snake which was hid­den in the grass. I’m grate­ful that the Lord hon­ors our prayers for ALL our work­ers (saved and unsaved), because the snake only hit his pants legs, and didn’t man­age to bite him before it fled into the bush­es and got away.

JESUS’ RETURN IS VERY NEAR.

Be very obser­vant to the “ enemy’s pit­falls” in the world around you, for Satin is wait­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to strike. Don’t play around with him, CUT HIS HEAD OFF with the Sword of the Spir­it (God’s Word). World­ly dis­trac­tions will keep you from “see­ing the attack­er”. Decep­tion and con­fu­sion are his best tools.

STAY ALERT!

Pray using the Name of JESUS, the Blood of Jesus, and the Word of God. The 3 most pow­er­ful tools the Lord gave us. Use them and no weapon formed against you can prosper.

I’ve sur­vived 3 mam­ba strikes, so am a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny that the NAME OF JESUS is all pow­er­ful and works EVERY TIME.

Hap­py New Year, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and her brave Bala­ma Staff