Snakes in the House

Oh here we go. My LEAST favorite time of year. The time of year when baby calves are romping in the fields, colts are kicking up their heels, baby birdies are chirp chirp chirping outside windows in the morning. The air is cool and crisp in the morning (perfect hoodie weather, even over my expanding waist line) but warms up enough that I can open and KEEP OPEN the moon roof on my car.

Spring time.

I should love spring time. It signals new beginnings and fresh starts. It also signals spring cleaning but I choose to ignore that sign.

It also signifiy's infestation. A "Sandhills Epidemic" (I dont need the W.H.O. to help ME proclaim an epidemic or pandemic or anything other kind of demic. I can call this one all on my own.)

Snakes in the House.

Yes, MY FREAKING NIGHTMARE COMES TRUE!!!! Let me start right now that I am NOT a part of this club right now. If I was a member of this club I would not be blogging about it because I do not have a laptop and I am sure it is very hard to type on the desktop while I am sitting on the roof.

The second thing you should know is that I am beyond ridiculous in my fear of snakes. I am the idiot who runs into the house when she steps on a stick and thinks it might be a gardner snake. I am also the moron who hyperventilates when she actually DOES see a gardner snake. I have caused major headaches to my Eagle Scout father (who believes in the snake relocation program....while I believe in the run them over with the lawn mower program). I am a paranoid, irrational freak.

I have accepted this and I am ok with it.

Let me now tell you how this particular blog entry came to be....it all started on Wednesday after a great lunch with hubby in town (gotta love Tracey's roast beef...YUMMY!!!). He mentions we need to go to the feed store in town to get some mouse posion.

"For what?" as neurons in my brain start firing at 2 billion a nanosecond.
"In the barn....we have a slight mouse problem in the barn" He does not make eye contact me with.

He knows how I think. He knows my neurons are irrational and immediatly start putting together the worst case scenario.

Mice means the cats didnt survive the winter. No Cats means mice and mice mean SNAKES. Snakes mean that I dont go anywhere near the barn until he can assure me that they are gone. If I do have to walk down to see the horses, you can bet I will have on jeans and my boots. Even if it is 90 degrees out...totally covered.

If you want to know how bad it could get after I actually SEE a snake then please read my previous blog http://mom2pippa.blogspot.com/2010/02/me-snakes-shotgun-repost.html.

Yep...irrational fool. Thats me.

Fast-forward to this morning. Out of bed at 630. Hubby goes to take a shower and I sit down to check facebook only to find out that my ranchy wifey friend has killed 3 snakes in her coat room. Well her dog and honey have. In typical facebook status fashion people commented back...and my fabulous neighbors and friends all made it known that many of them are currently or have been in the past dealing with the same problem.

Snakes in the House.

I talked to Shawn about this a few weeks ago. Conversation went something like this....

"Are you sure we cant get snakes in the house?"
"Yes"
"How sure?"
"Completely sure"
"Completely 190% you would stake your life....."
"Stop....there are no snakes in the house. There never have been and there never will be. "
"Is that 190% sure?"

As I said before, he was in the shower when I logged into facebook so when I heard the water shut off, I positioned myself by the door and informed him of the discovery.

"We cannot get snakes in the house."
"How do you know?"
"Stop."
"There is that one place on the side of the basement."
"Stop."
"Make sure the screen door stays closed."
"Stop."

Hmmm.....my next plan....my dogs. They love me and are always concerned about my mental well being, especially when hubby does not appear to be. My dogs are also snake killers. Well, one is a proven snake killer and the other, well......he is not "proven". I worry about him thinking Mr. 5 foot bull snake is hissing at him because he wants to play. Did I mention he likes to run around with all his trophies of the animals who like to "play" with him? Yep.....heart attack waiting to happen with Husker.

Junior didnt get a single snake last summer. A rational person would think "yeah!!! no snakes by the house!!!". However I am not a rational person. My neurons say "he only has one eye and loves to sleep in the sun...he just missed them."

I would like to go on notice now as saying that all snakes scare the begeesus out of me, but out here we dont have just little gardner snakes. We have water snakes, which are harmless and like the water (Shawn is in charge of sprinklers in the yard), and the bull snakes. Big snakes with permanment attitude problems. They are non-venemous, as all of them are, but still........BAD ATTITUDES. And BIG. Like 5-6 feet big. They do have rattlers down in the southern part of the county but no one has ever seen any out by us. At least I can be irrational about non-venemous snakes right now....I dont know what I would do if I had a serious, life threatening one around.

I will hold tight to my husband not lying to me. His mom wouldnt either....and she grew up here sleeping in the basement. Never saw a snake in the house. I will also consider keeping the proven snake killer in the house at night to patrol and the other one outside to keep them away from the house.

Bring on the skunks! Bring on the procupines! I can handle a coyote on my roof but I cannot handle the idea of snakes. Especially, snakes in the house.

Oh yes....here we go........

Me + Snakes + Shotgun = ???? (repost)

Originally posted on MySpace August 27, 2008


Many of you know that of my many quailities, being rational isnt always one of my strongest. I know this and I have accepted this. When it comes to my irrational behavior, nothing makes me behave more out of control then snakes.

I fear them.

I loathe them.

I think they are good for nothing but a pair of boots or a belt, neither of which I would wear but still.

I have spent my life with my eternal boy scout of a father who strongly believes in the "reptile relocation" program while I support the "run the over with the lawn mower" group. Now, however, I face a bigger battle.

My future husband.

I adore him. He (and Piper) are my world. A world where in NE, we happen to have large snakes that live in the area.

Now, I know that they wont hurt me (bull snakes) and apparentely they are more afraid of me then I am of them (that one is debatable) and thankfully, he isnt a fan of them either.

Now...the reason for my blog.....this weekend we went on a great ride in the hills. While we were coming across the meadow in front of the house, heading back home, we (my horse and I) stepped over a big bull snake.

I trotted up a little, Buck didnt care...squealed like a 5 year old a little bit and Shawn told me I handled that well. We contiuned on and he wisely changed the subject but never did I stop thinking about the snake as I was sure if/when I looked behind it...it was watching me.

The rest of the day comes and goes....and I end up coming home. After another nightmare round of flights (thank you Northwest AGAIN) I make it home. I tell my dad how proud he should be of me, that Shawn was proud of me and how I handled the snake issue.

Last night, as I was obsessing again about the snake, we (Shawn and I) started talking about it again and the now infestation I have (brewing in my head of course) of how many of those HUGE snakes in the front yard.

First he tells me it wasnt that big....they get like 6 feet ( WRONG answer 1)

Then he tells me about the time one found its way into his friends parents house (again, not a good answer)

THEN he tells me I CANNOT spend $1000 on de-snakifying my front yard (seriously...my sanity isnt worth anything to him).

I asked if I could spend $50, and he said maybe...for the entire year (seriously now.....) but a "shell" would cost less.

A shell? I question...???

Yes, a shot gun shell.

Lets get a mental picture shall we.....

ME...completely irrational, out of control, possibly hyperventelating trying to corral the dogs (and kids) in the garage, grabbing the shot gun, LOADING it without shooting myself, a dog OR my husband (whose brilliant idea it was to give me the loaded weapon in the presence of a snake), taking aim at the snake in the middle of the front yard...pulling the trigger from 20 yards away (thats how close I would have to get.....which is about 80 yards closer then I would like) and HOPING I get the snake.

I would probably kill all the trees, take out a few windows, probably a hole or 10 in the walls...maybe some other small, innocent animals.....terrify my horses and dogs, entertaining the children.....lets not talk about where the husband would be because if he is around and I am taking care of the snake, we have a completely seperate set of issues to deal with, and all in all...the damn snake would live to terrorize me again.

I ask you....should I have access to a shot gun in the presence of a snake or no??