Snakes Alive

We finally had a spring-like day. It was so nice. The kids wanted to go outside and ride bikes. As soon as I got home from picking them up from school, we got out the bikes, wagon, scooter, etc.

The yard needed some attention. There were a lot of sticks and leaves scattered about. I actually like yard work and love the sense of satisfaction I get when it looks nice. All three kids helped me clean up the piles of leaves and sticks.

There is a landscaped area directly in front of the house that is probably 5 feet by 10 feet. The owners covered it with dry pine needles which I guess is the thing to do around here because I have seen it a lot. To me it looks a little messy and it is hard to rake out dead leaves without raking up all the pine needles. I took the rake and got the edges pretty well and pulled out a few weeds. There is some kind of weed that is spreading across much of the area so I thought I would hit it heavily with weed killer today and then pull it out later.

As I was standing pretty much in the middle of the area and spraying weed killer on spots something moved. Before I even saw it, I jumped out of said area. I knew what it was without even looking.

Snake. It was actually more like, "SNAAAKKKE!" When I decided to do yard work the thought that there could be snakes around on this beautiful day did cross my mind. I even looked over the landscaped area before I started raking and pulling leaves. I can't believe I didn't see it. The weeds really aren't that high or thick.

And then the snake started to move...

...and stretch out.

The area it was in is between the front door and the garage door. The garage door was open so I had the kids start putting everything away as quickly as possible. I had no idea what we were going to do if it crawled in there. We eventually closed the garage door which evidently made him crawl toward the front door.

Aaron has been asking for a pet snake since last summer. He thought he had hit the jackpot. Wrong!

I didn't crop this picture because it is important to the story. If you look closely, you can see the snake crawling toward the bottom of the gutter. To the left of the gutter you can see a phone sitting on the step that leads into the front door. See the smile on Aaron's face? He really wanted to get closer, but his mommy said, "Uh? No way!"

The snake crawled to the step. I thought it was going to crawl up on top of it, but it stopped. There is a small hole between the step and the house. I didn't know this prior to today. The snake must live there. Yeah us! Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it crawling into the hole because I stopped to video. Walking in and out of the front door will never be the same. I should go see if it has crawled back out. How many more live around here?

P.K. called to let me know he is on his way home. I just told him I have a surprise for him and we will reveal it via video. He asked if it is a good or bad surprise. I told him it depends on who you ask which is true after listening to my son declare this the best day ever.

By the way, I would love for someone to identify this snake for me. I think it is a black rat snake.