Saturday, March 15, 2008

In celebration of St. Patrick himself

This afternoon, I was on a mission to rid the country of all its snakes. I thought I'd start with the back yard.

Daughter told me that she and the neighbor saw a snake on our dock. It was "all black", so she said. I assumed it was probably a harmless king snake.

Later, when she shared the story with her Daddy, it went something like this...

"We saw a snake. It was shaking its tail and hissing at Ms. R. It didn't bite her, though."

EEEEEEKKK!

I informed her that these details she failed to give earlier were vitally important.

So I went out on the dock with my big shovel and searched, bent on killing me a varmint.

When I saw it, it was curled up, shaking its tail and slithering its disgusting snake tongue at me. Yuck. I walked carefully behind it and just as it slinked down between the dock's boards, I jabbed it with the shovel.

It lived. But right now it is taking a powerful dose of reptile extra strength Tylenol for that nasty shovel injury.

When hubs came outside with me, the snake was poking his head between the boards. We still couldn't finish it off. Hubs is convinced it isn't a water moccasin, but me? I ain't so sure...

It looked an awful lot like the snake I killed last summer but it was so hard to tell.

Tomorrow, I plan to make a positive ID.

I know that tomorrow is Sunday and there is probably some commandment against killing snakes on The Lord's Day, but a girl can't rest with a could-be poisonous snake slithering somewhere in her yard.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd have a "For Sale" sign on my house in an instant if one of those things was in my yard!

Anonymous said...

If one of those things "were" in my yard.

One of my pet peeves - using was instead of were in that instance.

PJ said...

I think killing snakes on the Lord's day goes into the category with pulling donkeys of pits on the Lord's day. So you GO for it!!!

Fiddledeedee said...

My SIL once found a snake in her apartment. My BIL was out of town. When he got back home, his key no longer fit the lock. She had hired movers to take everything (except the snake) to another apartment.

She just forgot to tell her husband.

I'm with you on this one. Snake = Satin.

Unknown said...

OMG EEEK!

You are SO BRAVE!! Let me tell you as a Brit' I am not used to snales at all, only in zoo's. So moving to OK and having to see them has been a big culture shock and not a good one.

Last year we had a tiny but long grass snake go into the garage and I nearly shattered the Hubsters eardrum screaming into the phone.

Then I stepped onto a friends path to have one shoot in front of me (it was big) and she heard the scream in the house! We live in rattlesnake country which doesn't help.

The idea of killing one completely freaks me out. This is also one reason we nixed the idea of decking!

TOTAL ADMIRATION!

Missy said...

Oh, my gosh. I seriously think you could make a mighty fine theological argument that killing a snake on the Lord's day is WAY holy. I mean, "he shall crush the head of the serpent with his heel"? Killing snakes on the Sabbath would be totally groovy. If you stepped on it, and killed it with your FOOT - that would be very cool & holy.