Snakes

If there is one thing that I am afraid of, it is snakes. I can handle spiders and other bugs, but snakes have always creeped me out. Due to the fact that I have boys, I try to put on a brave face and I have even touched snakes at the Bean Museum, but that is about as much as I can do. I don't want to hold it or spend a lot of time with it, and I definitely don't want it near my house.

We have lived here for almost 6 years, and we have never seen a snake. But this Memorial Day weekend, we saw TWO snakes. On Saturday, we were outside working in the yard, and Mark yelled "SNAKE!" At first, Randy and I thought he was just playing, but he insisted, so we went to check it out. There is was. A little garter snake slithering through our lawn. We watched it, and it moved pretty quickly back toward the field next to our house. So I survived, and nothing happened--it wasn't like an anaconda was living in our yard. Mark and Dax thought it was amazing.

On Monday, I went out to check on the garden and saw some weeds growing in the strawberry patch. I decided to take a few minutes to pull them out. As I was pulling them out, I saw something moving below. Now we have had all sorts of bugs in the strawberries, but this was gray and scaly and long and skinny. At first I thought it was the sprinkler pipe that Randy just laid down, and my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then it moved again. I decided that the weeds could wait and went in to tell the brave boys in my family. Mark and Randy came to check it out, but they couldn't find it--I am sure it was long gone by then. Randy said it was a good thing and might keep the bugs down. I told him that it meant that I wouldn't be able to pick strawberries this year--good thing that Randy usually does that for me anyway.

Apparently we have snakes here. I always knew they were around, but seeing them really made it worse. I figure the snakes are out in plain sight because it's been such a wet year, or because our yard looks so amazing this year (nice job, Randy), but I have been trying to convince myself we don't have to move. So if you see a For Sale sign in front of our house--you'll know why.