Snakes

Missy gave me a little bit of a hard time about not blogging about the snake (s) and since I don't want to be all updatey tonight because we didn't do anything remarkable (although we did see the ALWAYS remarkable Quigs).

A week or so ago, we were cleaning up the jungle that our backyard had become. We were pulling weeds near the house and I was yanking out all the ivy that had grown up around the basement window. At the time, I commented that I hated it because it was just places for icky things to live and when icky things lived that close the house, they would find ways in. After I yanked out it all out, my dad went through and weed wacked the rest of the mess that had grown up in the same area. Then mom and I were pulling the pieces out and tossing them in the yard to be mulched and bagged when RF got around with the mower. I walked away to help the kids when my mom jumps and yells "Oh my God" I run over thinking she has hurt herself on the gardening tools (mom is not known for being the most graceful person and that she cut body parts off was a distinct possibility) Before I could get across the yard, she said that she was fine but that she found "a tiny baby garter snake and it went down in this hole near the foundation of the house" She poked at the hole for a few minutes and nothing happened, so she got the gas can out and poured some in there, waiting for it to come out because apparently gas with either kill them or chase them out of places. It took forever coming out and I figured it was probably sitting on my bookshelf laughing at us being stupid. Eventually, it crawled out and it was mercilessy hacked to death and it's body was cremated in the fire pit. At the time I commented "well it might have been a little one but where there are little ones, there are big ones as well"

Fast forward to yesterday. The kids and I walked to the store to get some stuff for dinner. We walked up the driveway and see something laying on the patio in front of the gate. We had a lot of downed sticks and limbs so at first I assumed it was that. Kept walking closer and noticed it wasn't really stick colored. It was black and yellow, the color of the garden hose. Those damn kids must have gotten the hose out and left it, growl growl growl. Walk a little closer, until I'm nearly on top of it only to have it rear back and starting slithering away! I jumped, screamed, yanked the stroller back with one hand, yanked The Boy back with the other hand, screamed some more, grabbed my cell phone (because I couldn't leave it alone to find something to "OMG OMG KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT OMG", which also happened to be what I was screaming) to call my dad and sent TB to the front door to hurry him along. Dad come running out of the house with a bent up snow shovel that is kept on the porch but by then it was gone. He dug through some weeds that it went into but never did find it. I cooked dinner sitting on the picnic table and I don't take one single step outside my door without throughly checking the patio for anything that might move. We chopped down all the weeds today so if we see it again, it has no where to hide.

Now the only problem is, I'm afraid I will find it in the yard somewhere and be forced to shriek for someone to come kill it. I have a complete phobia of snakes (those of you with Lego Indiana Jones that have played the snake know that Indy is totally useless in that level. That would seriously be me except instead of covering my face and hiding, I scream loudly, haul ass in the opposite direction and seek much higher ground) to the point of being irrational. Since we moved in here, I have lived in fear that I will one day find a snake in the basement (and it isn't like we have an infestation or anything. This is only the 4th snake, counting the little one from earlier, in 5 years that we have seen around here and one of those was dead when we found it) Now, it is to the point that I will barely walk around my house without shoes and forget it being dark. I leave every light in the house on all the time so that if something is there, I have warning. I also open my washing machine lid leaned over at an angle, ready to run like hell. For some reason, the kitchen and the washing machine are the two places I expect to find something like that.