Snakes alive . . . and then dead

Last night, I put the girls to bed and then the phone rang. It was Trent. He was at Home Depot and was wondering if the water softener needed more salt, so I went outside to look. This was at about 8:20 pm. (and yes, in Texas water softeners are outside -- in fact ours is buried right in front of our house with bushes hiding it). I checked it and then saw our neighbor getting the mail. She and I wave a lot and rarely talk, but when we do talk we have a lot to talk about seeing as we rarely talk. So we are chatting and about 10 minutes later, out walks Julianne and Madelyn. They came out the back door and through the gate and then all the way down the driveway. They are hysterical. They are certain I have been abducted by aliens and are never coming home again. I calm them down and tell them to go lay on the couch and I would be in in a minute. They head in and not 2 minutes later they come back out, this time with the phone. Trent is on the line and he wants to know what kind of lettuce I want (romaine --in case your curious, since he is now grocery shopping for me at HEB and I emailed him a list to follow -- don't you just love blackberries!). I tell the girls to go in and this time they won't. Felicia and I continue to try to chat, but finally I sigh and say, "Well I have got to get these kids to bed -- so we'll catch up again soon." We head up the driveway and as we are about to walk through the gate this is blocking our way. . .

Now, it is really dark (and I don't have the outdoor lights on) and I can clearly see the black and the yellow stripes, but the red ones are hard to distinguish -- and I don't want to get too close. I rely on my ever stagnant snake knowledge "red and yellow kills a fellow, red and black friend of jack" But for the life of me I can't tell which color is where and I am not about to pick it up and ask it. The problem is, I cannot get in the house, the snake is effectively blocking us. Right then, Catherine (who is in the house) tries to come out. I scream, "Shut the door, SNAKE!!!!!!) She slammed the door and the blinds come flying up and I wish, I wish I had had my camera because her face with the wide eyes looking out through the bright lights of the door windows was priceless!

I told Julianne to run to the neighbor's and tell Felicia to get Bobby to get the snake. And Julianne ran, and my neighbor's ran and brought a shovel and axe and now the snake is history.

My neighbor ran off to dispose of it, and I did not get a picture. He yelled -- I think it has red and black together -- so I am supposing (hoping) that it was not poisonous.

Thank goodness for brave neighbor men!!!

Trent and I had been debating who had to go grocery shopping -- Trent felt he made the right choice after hearing about the snake!!!!