It's been a zoo around here.

Literally. Yesterday afternoon when I got up from playing my computer game, on my way to give Megan a bath before church, I entered the hallway from the dining room and--much to my surprise--there's a rat snake making his way into my kitchen. I screamed, forced the children to stay in the living room, then grabbed a shoebox and cornered him. He shook his tail like a little rattlesnake and released a really stinky musk (both are defense mechanisms). I realized I didn't have anything to actually grab him with, so I ran to get a hanger. My plan was to hook him up, put him in the shoebox and take him far away from here.

Well, when I got back from the bedroom, he had disappeared under my stove. I immediately called Bryan, who was almost home, and when he got there we moved the stove trying to find him. We couldn't find him anywhere and couldn't figure out how he could have gotten out of there. After searching nervously all over the kitchen, the garage, etc, we just gave up and came on to church supper, after calling a game warden for some advice (not much help).

When we got home, I got a flashlight and made sure he wasn't in the girls' rooms anywhere while we got them ready for bed. Then I saw in the dining room, the black camera bags against the wall, and thought, "Hmm, he might blend in well right there." And sure enough, there he was, tight against the wall between a bag and a statue.

I screamed again.

Then after making sure the girls were a safe distance away, Bryan found some good leather gloves and we boxed him up, but this time, Bryan had had enough of snake handling, so he decided to take him outside and kill him. He cut off his head and that's the end of that snake. I really didn't want to kill him. I like to have non-venomous snakes around--not in my house, of course, but they're good for killing rats and mice and other little pests. If I ever spot another snake in my house (non-venomous, of course), I'll make sure to grab him up right away and take him far away from our house.

Bryan had caught this same snake a couple months back in our front yard and I made him release him way down in the field. I guess he just liked us. Actually, I think he was trying to get out of the horrendous heat that's going on. 100+ temps for a few days now. I don't blame him for trying to get cool. Here's a neat website about rat snakes that I found this morning. The pic above is from that site, not our own snake. I was too freaked out to think of getting my camera. Enjoy!

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/Facts/FactSheets/Blackratsnake.cfm