I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes...

...and that ain't what it takes to love me...

That old Jim Stafford song came to mind this summer when I found a snake on my patio. Where snakes don't belong. Next to my patio door.

I was trying to slip quietly out the patio door to snap a picture of a baby bunny in the backyard. I looked down at the flowerpots.  "There's a snake on my patio!" I yelled.  I was NOT happy.  My son came out, took one look and disappeared into the house.  I tried to be calm - as calm as I could be with a snake on my patio, anyway!  I closed the door and moved slowly away.  It didn't move, so I started snapping pictures.  Proof for my husband that it really was there, because I had no doubt it would escape before he came home. 

My son finally came back out to the patio, dressed in jeans and work boots and carrying a long-handled shovel.  I grabbed a big bucket from the shed.  He stuck the shovel between the flower pots and dragged the snake out where we could pop the bucket over top of it.  And then we put a huge rock on top because I wasn't taking any chances that it could get out!

Son wanted to kill it and eat it; he said he's curious what snake tastes like.  I was all for killing it but he wasn't going to cook it in MY house!  Hubby overruled us both when he arrived home.  He shoveled it into another bucket and took it out in the country to turn it loose.  Being paranoid, I went along to be sure he went far, far away before he turned it loose.   

That was Saturday.  I didn't sleep for days, worrying about that snake coming back.  Thursday night, Hubby stuck his head in the back door and asked Son to come help him for a minute.  In that instant, I knew that snake was back!  Son came back in to get batteries for a headlamp and admitted Hubby had seen a snake by the shed door.  What was Hubby thinking when he left it there to come get help?  I can't believe he thought it would stay there, just waiting for him to catch it.  And of course, it didn't.  When they went back out, it was gone.  It was kind of funny, watching them bob around the backyard in the dark with flashlights. But they never did find it and I refused to go out in the backyard for a few more days.

Now I check beside the flowerpots before I open the patio door.  I'm thinking a nicely landscaped yard isn't necessarily a great thing.  Maybe just plain old dirt would be better...