Snakes!

A couple of weeks ago Matt was shoveling out the compost pile to move it to it's new location when I heard him yell for all the kids to come outside quick! It seems that as he got towards the bottom of the pile he scooped up a shovelful & heard something. When he turned towards the shovel to look, this snake was right there close to his hand. He threw it off the shovel & pinned the head down while he waited for the kids to go out & check it out.
Jessi of course wanted to pick it up (behind its head of course so it couldn't strike), but when she determined that it was a poisonous snake because it had fangs I wouldn't allow it. After Matt chopped the head off with the shovel we were able to see it better & realized it was a cotton-mouth (water moccasin). Unfortunately I only have a picture of the body because Jessi immediately buried the head so the dogs wouldn't get poisoned. Then for the next 15 minutes or so the kids played with the body - YUCK!

Then last weekend I had grand plans to spend most the day Saturday getting the house clean, all the laundry done (and folded- and put away- including socks) so Matt would come home from his exhausting drill weekend to a perfectly clean house. I knew my day wouldn't go as planned when I woke up to this in my bathtub:


I woke Jimmy & told him to get Houdini, our pet snake & throw him in the tub with the field mouse. Houdini had quite a feast! *Note all the little mouse turds that I had SO much fun cleaning out :-P