Monday, August 15, 2005

Sn..Sn..Sn..aaakke!



It was early morning, almost a year ago (August 19, 2004) when I was awakened by the slamming of the back door. I came upstairs (yes, our bedroom is downstairs--like everything else about this house--it's a$$backwards) and Paul was hosing off the front porch and spraying water all over the sliding glass door.

In the over 11 years of our marriage, he had never hosed off the porch so I knew something was up. I started to open the slider and he yelled, "Shut the door!" Then he said that dreaded word: rattlesnake.

I looked down and on the right side of the slider, next to one of my baskets on the porch was a pretty good sized rattlesnake. Looking through the glass. Right at moi. Or, rather, looking at moi's backside as I ran out the back door.

Lets' back up to earlier:

Seems that when Paul got up earlier to feed the horses and headed out the slider, he saw one of my flowerpots had been knocked over. Our feral cat, Yeller was looking at something in the corner behind a small fountain, and as Paul bent over to pick up the pot, he heard a rattle (his first clue should have been wondering why Yeller hadn't run when he opened the door because Yeller, after all, is feral) and came face-to-face with the snake: soon to be known as dead-snake-slithering.

Back to the future:

Paul was unsuccessful at blowing the snake off the porch with the hose and the snake was not leaving the space he'd found between the sliding glass door and the basket on the porch, so I ran to my storage shed and brought my pond net that has a 15-Ft telescoping handle. Pay careful attention to this part in case you ever find yourself in this situation, okay?

We telescoped the handle out all the way and used the metal frame of the net to move the basket and trap the snake's head and hold it to the cement porch. I think you can figure out the end of the story.

US=1, Snake=0.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

one of the best offices I’ve had to date was at Vichy Springs Resort (down hill neighbor owns the place), my commute consisted of slinging the laptop bag over my shoulder and in shorts, T-shirt and Berkies cut across his back yard take the trail over the hill and cross the foot bridge behind the main pool (office was in building next to pool) take a few laps at lunch, weekly BBQ, if it got really rough, grab a pint and head for the tubs

of course that’s the place where we killed not one, but two rattlesnakes

in the building

first time a producer friend had just arrived for an interview – his comment – “wow you mean you get to whack them instead of saying “Yes Mam?” – when can I start?

8/17/05, 4:15 PM  
Blogger CountryGirl said...

LOL Vid! Thanks for stopping by.

8/17/05, 4:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great story. Poor thing. It sounds gross.

8/18/05, 4:56 PM  

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