Wednesday, October 12, 2011

I will never call a bug ungrateful again


Karma is a pain.  I know this.  Why on Earth did I think I could get away with calling the praying mantis an ungrateful little bug?  Yeah, well no joke a couple of days ago my husband was out in the backyard barbecuing and Kyle was outside playing around.  We literally just moved in to a new house (so new that the backyard isn't even landscaped).  It backs up to a very large field, think hundreds of acres.   Kyle comes running in to the house squealing with joy that there is a snake in the backyard. 

You have to understand, I don't like bugs, but I'm not TERRIFIED of them either.  Snakes?  That is an entirely different story.  They are the stuff of nightmares to me.   I knew my husband wasn't a fan of snakes either, but it wouldn't be until that day that I understood how afraid he really was.  

After seeing the snake - the daddy bear in my husband kicked in.  He shooed the kids away and as we all stood from afar looking at this 14 inch long snake laying in the dirt, we debated what kind of snake it was.  I kept insisting it was a rattlesnake, but we all agreed that there wasn't a rattle visible, so we second guessed that.  On the off chance it was a rattlesnake, I shooed the kids in to the far corner of the house (to keep them from gawking through the windows) and my husband ran for the only shovel we had.


This spot is intentionally left blank.  
This is where I would have inserted a 
picture of the snake.  But I 
refuse to put a picture of a real 
snake on my site.



I hid behind the sliding door to the kitchen and watched as my husband wound up the shovel preparing to whack the snake and gasped as he jumped (literally) four feet back.  Yes, the snake had coiled up and lunged at him.  Did I mention it stuck its tail up to rattle (the yet to be grown rattle) because it is still so young?  Yeah.  Glad we didn't know at the time that the baby ones are the most lethal because they can't control the venom they release when they bite.

He whacked the snake, it kept moving so he cut the head off with the shovel.

You'd think the post would end here, right?  Nope.  Well, it was all my husband could think of.  He bought replacement batteries for the flashlight so when he takes the dog out at night, he can do a scan for snakes.  He bought two more bigger shovels at the hardware store. One for the backyard, one for the front yard and I guess the other is for good measure.

A couple days ago we had a landscaping contractor out to give us a bid on completing the backyard.  My husband walked around with the shovel in his hands.  No joke.  It was still total daylight.  I asked the poor contractor if my husband had explained the purpose of the shovel and he said, "No...I was actually wondering if I should be concerned".  Yeah... well you see my husband wants it with him at all times in case a snake catches him off guard in our backyard.  Which, mind you is ALL dirt, so you can see EVERYTHING from far away.  Just sayin'.
My husband wants to change the mulch in the front yard now to a darker color so that he can see any snakes.  We have priced out adding plexi-glass to the bottom of our fence to prevent snakes from coming through the wrought iron.

Oh yeah... and he is purchasing a metal rake/back hoe so that he can prevent snake from lunging at him.

I think my husband is a little terrified of snakes and I SWEAR never EVER to make fun of the pest population again.

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