What a Discovery!

Yesterday, as Ryan and I were working outside to get the place ready for summer, he found a ringneck snake under the leaves we were moving from the patio to the woods. We didn't automatically know it was a ringneck, but we looked it up and quickly discovered the name of our friendly little guy...who happened to be slightly poisonous. However, according to my research it isn't likely that he could sink his back teeth, where they store the venom, into the skin. The snake was by far the coolest thing we've discovered while living here! We invited the neighbor's kids to come take a look and I started a petting-o-the-snake session, of course not knowing it was potentially dangerous at the time. The kids were a little scared at first, but they sure warmed up to the slithering little guy.

I have always loved snakes, believe it or not. I've let huge boa constrictors wrap themselves around me (with someone monitoring of course). But I scream bloody murder if a bee, centipede or spider come my way, jump on anything I can find to get away from a rodent, and I'm likely to intentionally kill pretty much anything on the ground that moves. I know I'll soon need to control myself because I really don't want my kids to be such freaks. I have been the butt of the jokes for the past 28 years for the shrill that leeks out of my mouth "EEEEEE - A BEE," with the frantic flailing of the arms and sudden running in circles to get away it, only for someone else to point out that it was only a fly (I still don't believe them) - or getting weird looks from other drivers when I'm frantically waving my arms, yelling, and swerving all over the road while in search for something to kill the occasional spider crawling across the dashboard. Oh, but how to stop...how can I possibly break the habits I've clung to in order to deal with my fears for so long - hide the reaction and let Ryan handle it, that's what I intend to do. From over-reaction to avoidance...great strategies I'm equipped with here...

Anyway, my point was that snakes don't really frighten me. So we decided to keep him. I'm kidding of course, I don't like any animal or reptile enough to intentionally let it live in my house. But he was fun to look at for a few minutes. And no, I didn't kill him. We set him free in the woods behind the house...so hopefully he'll end up back under our leaf pile in the fall.