Wild, Wild Life

The kids reminded me of our other snake encounters up here. Last summer, Allison made the shocking discovery of a grater snake in her water shoe. We loading up to go to Granny's Beach and she dropped the water shoes she was carrying on the floor of the van. When she dropped the shoe, the snake stuck its head out. Ben and I heard a shriek, and Allison flew out of the van like a shot! Luckily, Allison was able to herd it towards the back of the van, and we scooted it out into a bucket.

We also found a dozen or so baby ring-necked snakes in the house over the course of last summer. No idea how they got in or what they were looking for. Ben tried to keep one as a pet but set it after realizing we couldn't possibly catch crickets small enough for it to eat. Did I say "we"?

From here on out pets are the kids' responsibility. I gave Allison permission to buy 2 hermit crabs this weekend after making sure she understood that I was in no way going to take care of these things. Jay just rolled his eyes. We have already decided that our next "pets" will be chickens.

This one's for my sister

Around our house when any of us run into the house yelling enthusiastically for everyone to "come see", it's generally a creature of some kind. Yesterday, Jay came upon a large black snake sunning itself on the driveway. As we're all responding to Jay's calls, the snake was headed for the trees next to the garage. We're all looking round the base of the trees when all of a sudden we see its head sticking out of the branches about 5' up.

The snake stuck around for at least 15-20 minutes checking us out. Although the pictures wouldn't turn out, you could see its body on the other side of the tree along the trunk.

As a child, a snake sighting meant a rush for a shovel or hoe and the subsequent horror show as my Mom or Dad chopped up the offensive reptile, no matter how small or what kind of snake it was. To this day, my younger sister is terrified of snakes. It's no wonder. This guy was pretty cool though.