Mothra

Aaron and Hannah have been very happy to find some of the Virginia wildlife visiting our front porch.

 

 

The green line across the center of the photo is a Rough Green Snake.





Yard Work

My grass that I planted in the front yard and nurtured ever so carefully was beautiful for a while. Then we got our first water bill after a month of using the automatic sprinklers and figured out we must have a leak in the system somewhere. We decided to stop using the automatic system and feed the kids instead. The grass all but died, but the kids are still alive.

Thankfully, we finally got a lot of rain and the grass in the front yard made a come back, sort of. We have a drainage system that filters water to the backyard so it is always green. Because we have had tons of rain, the grass in the back was actually kind of jungle-ish.

Aaron and Hannah (Rachel is really innocent) are forever leaving balls, sticks, rocks and other junk around the backyard that I have to dodge when I am mowing. Because the grass was so high this time around, I sent them out there with rakes to go through the grass before I mowed.

Hannah came out of the garage carrying a garden rake and said, "I am just like a farmer with a pitch fork. I love yard work."

I mowed the side yard while they went over the backyard. After that, I had them pick sticks up out of the front yard. Not that I couldn't see them with the almost dead grass, but it is good for them to help out.

After mowing, I trimmed the trees around the yard.

This is Aaron and Hannah having a popsicle on their break. They were too cute sitting on the steps with their rain boots on. The boots were their idea.

Of course, we don't do yard work around here without finding snakes. We found one this morning, but I didn't stop to take a picture.

As I started typing this post, Aaron and his friend came to get me because they found this one in the backyard. I am fairly certain it is a midland brown snake. It is hard to tell in the picture, but it is probably only six inches long.

King Cal

Today is the day. The day we went to the reptile show and let Aaron choose his pet snake. He chose a California King snake which he has named King Cal. It is a 9 day old male. He eats prekilled small pinkie mice.

I would like to mention that some very "interesting" people can be found at reptile shows. We saw all kinds of snakes. There were also lizards, frogs, spiders (so glad Aaron didn't decide that was his love), mice (both live and frozen) turtles and more that I can't remember.

This huge blow up was just outside the entrance.

The snakes are put in small plastic containers to carry them home.

I picked up this small plastic cage the other day so we would have a place to put the snake when his cage is being cleaned. Thankfully I remembered to pack it this morning. It made me a lot less nervous than the little plastic bowl.

Once we got home we all had a turn holding him.

Aaron

Aaron

Mommy...Not the most flattering pictures of me, but proof that I am comfortable holding King Cal. When the kids were having their turns Aaron asked if I was going to have a turn. At first I said I wasn't, but then I realized I should get use to handling the snake while he is still a baby.

Rachel...even our girly girl liked holding him.

Hannah

King Cal checking out his new cage.

I didn't want to stress him out by stretching him out, but this is pretty close. He is probably right at 12 inches. This will be a good reference picture to see how much he grows.

This picture is a bit blurry, but it is unusual to see a snake drink.

We all enjoyed holding him and probably would have spent more time doing so except he has been transferred around quite a bit today and we don't want to stress him too much his first day.

More Snakes

When we came across the snake who lives under our front step, I emailed pictures to a local expert who was very helpful. He emailed back and confirmed that it is an Eastern King Snake. His organization is called to remove unwanted reptiles such as snakes. From his website, I learned that of the 41 snakes which are native to our state only 6 are venomous.

If you watched the video of our front yard snake encounter, you are probably aware that I had no idea which we had. It is also very obvious on the video that Aaron has a love for these creatures. Since then I have been trying to educate myself on snakes. Aaron will probably have one as a pet in the future and I want to be ready.

I am now on our local expert's email list and he sends out an email when he is going to be giving an educational presentation in the area. He had one last week, but it was a bit far away. Today he had one at a mall, so I loaded up the kids and headed over. It was awesome. He had one of each of the six venomous snakes and showed how to recognize each. He also debunked some stereotypes such as believing some species are naturally aggressive. He demonstrated the lack of aggressiveness with live snakes. He showed which ones are aggressive.

Some of the animals he had with him are not native to our state. Many are pets that people could no longer handle and either passed on to the organization or set free in the wild and were later captured.

Aaron would be the child smiling from ear to ear as he helped hold a 14 foot 100 pound Albino Burmese Python.

Rachel got to help too. She thought it was neat, but she was over it. Aaron hasn't stopped talking about it. He is now helping Hannah make paper snakes and they are pretending that the snakes are hunting for food.