Me vs The Snake

A snake was in our yard the other day. A big ol' black snake in our back yard. No biggie, right? I'd just keep the kids in the side and front yard til he went away. (I say "he" because as we all know yucky animals like snakes, tarantulas, hairless rats & dogs are always a "he" while pretty animals such as bunnies, ponies, kittens & dolphins are always "she." You know you do that too.) Well, I'd already told the boys that they could go swimming and had already invested way too much time putting their trunks and sunscreen on them not to do that. Oh, and the snake was guarding the water spicket, did I mention that? Yeah.

So to turn the water on to fill up the baby pool I had to get by the gigantic black snake. I tried tossing toys at him to get him to move. Unphased. Seriously, I threw probably 10 toys at that snake and he didn't care. Then I poked him with a stick. A loooong stick that Simon found. The snake recoiled enough to where I was able to turn on the hose. Once the hose was on, of course I sprayed that nasty thing til he slithered back to the woods. Yeah!

Now, I don't have anything against snakes in general. I'll touch them if I'm at a petting zoo or if it's someone's pet. I even bought the boys a book about a snake at a yard sale Saturday. But I don't appreciate a snake trying to take over my backyard and keep my kids from swimming in the pool when they've been asking whining to do that allll day (and you know that was the snake's plan). So if you're a snake and you're reading this blog, congratulations, you can read! And stay off of my lawn! (Also imagine I'm shaking my fist at you as I say that and then mutter something about kids [or snakes] these days.)