Snake, Chicken vs. scorpion and BBQ pit fire smoker!

We had a rattlesnake under the house about a month ago. If you walked by it sounded like water rushing through pipes but then the rattle sound would slowly taper off and then you could distinctly tell it was a rattle. A neighbor nearby came over and killed it with a shovel! I was scared to death--they only strike when they are coiled and it was all coiled up! But I guess they only strike 1/3 of their body length so if you stand back far enough you should be ok. But the rattlesnake didn't even strike. He just coiled up and the neighbor stabbed him (many times!) We think it was one of those mohave greens. About 3 feet long. Ooooh! I just got the willies even thinking about it--I thought something was crawling on me right now! Don't you hate that?!
Well we had another snake go under the house about 3 days ago. DH brings the kids inside and says Sarah (the dog) was barking at a snake and it slithered under the house. Great. After seeing that neighbor kill the rattler I wasn't too scared of them anymore. Get a shovel--stand back far enough. I say, "We gotta go get it--I can't have a rattlesnake living under the house." So we start tearing back the apron on the house and seeing all sorts of cobwebs and odd things under there in the darkness. "Look," he says, "There's the snake tracks." You can see the slither mark in the soft dirt. It looks like it went down a hole. DH says it didn't even rattle--those ones are the worst kinds. They don't even let you know their gonna bite you! The previous owner had an aquarium stored under the house (so weird!) so DH started to carefully pull it out so we could get a better look under the house....and out pops the snake!!! It started wriggling like crazy--DH is hopping around saying "Woah!!" It was this dark brown, easily 4 foot, real skinny snake--as soon as we saw it--it was gone deep under the house. It was fast! That was no rattler--they are fat with big heads--this one was skinny all the way to the head and it's coloring didn't look like a rattlesnake--you could have easily seen it on the dirt. Rattlesnakes blend in so well you could step on them if you wern't looking. I looked on the internet and the best I could guess was maybe a non-poisonous red racer (coachwhip) snake? They eat all sorts of stuff--even rattlesnakes. Hopefully it was that one then. I said, "Why didn't you kill it?!" He stands there holding the shovel...."Oh yeah...darn it! I was too busy looking at how huge it was!" He only had a few seconds any way--that snake was fast!
So DH decided to continue to pull the aquarium out and out pops a toad (no surprise--they come out in droves at nighttime), and a yucky looking spider, and a HUGE scorpion!!! The biggest I've ever seen! He goes running under the house at full speed with his tail curled in the air ready to strike! I'm telling the dog and the chickens to get away, and Sarah minds me but the chickens chase after it--"Get away!" I say--silly chickens are about to get stung! Just then the Barred Plymouth Rock pecks at it--and then she has it in her mouth--it's dead! The other chickens start chasing her to steal it away! I was laughing in disbelief! I had NO idea chickens ate scorpions--the scorpion didn't stand a chance! Praise God for our chickens! They have been nothing but a good (cheap) investment! We are now getting 6 eggs a day (WAY more than we could eat) and the Araucauna started laying so now we are going to have blue eggs! (Just the egg shell is blue :)
My friend said she was surprised our chickens were laying in the 110 degree AZ heat because her friend's chickens won't lay in our hot summers--and the lady at the farmers market told me the same thing--you know why I think ours lay? I think it's because for the majority of the day they go under our house. It's pitch black in there, nice and cool, and the air conditioning flows from under the house so maybe they even benefit from that too. So they don't experience the heat stress the other chickens in AZ have to endure. Any stress will cause a chicken to stop laying. Glad our girls are happy! Here is the inside of our chicken coop. They nest in the blue and red boxes (they are picky--they won't go in the yellow or green!) and they roost on the step ladder and up in the rafters.
And lastly--our propane went out a few days ago (my bad---I was procrastinating on getting it refilled) and our stove runs on propane...so dinners have been interesting! There are only so many "raw" meals you can make so we've taken to cooking over open fire outside! Which we enjoy so it isn't so bad. We had mesquite smoked mahi mahi, mesquite smoked turkey (you can still buy Turkeys at the grocery store--well atleast at Sprouts--I prefer to buy a whole turkey because it costs a 1/3 less then buying turkey breasts and 1/5 less than buying Turkey lunch meat--not to mention-lunch meat almost always has nitrates in it as a preservative which is carcinogenic--and usually sugar too which also acts as a preservative. So I roast a turkey and carve my own lunch meat). To mesquite smoke the meat we cut some mesquite chips from our dead tree and then soak them in water for awhile and then when it's just hot coals, throw the wet mequite bits into the coals and cover with a bbq lid.
We also made roasted corn (just put the corn, husks and all on the bbq when the flame is still present but small and after 10 min or so they will be steamed on the inside--peel back the husks and silk and enjoy!). We also made rice--thank goodness for my versatile cast iron pans! After the flame died down and it was just hot coals we put the cast iron directly on the hot coals and boiled the water then added rice and covered it with the lid, and set it on the rack so it would just simmer for 40 min (we only use whole grain brown rice so it takes longer but it more nutritious and has all the fiber). Tonight we are having rice and shrimp/onion/bell pepper shish-ka-bobs (how do you spell that?!)

So here is a cheap easy to make bbq smoker--you need flat stones (never use shale-it could burst in the heat), a bbq rack (we have 2--the rectangular one you see and what everything is roasting on in the picture is a circular one), and a lid of some sort (you could you a peice of sheet metal even as long as it in non-galvanized which is pretty hard to find). Then burn a fire for about 20-30 min so everything is good and hot, let it die down to coals, put your wet mesquite (or whatever) chips on the coals, it should start smoking right away (if not poke the coals around), then cover with your lid. Prop open a bit with a rock so the smoke can get out. The more it's propped open the less intense the smoke flavor. Works great! The only way I could see us improving the one we have below is if we put cement all around the outer rim--we have to be real careful not to stir up the dirt so it doesn't get on the food.