Sunday, May 31, 2009

Going to Hell, Probably in A Snakeskin Lined Handbasket


I have been wallowing in guilt all night because we killed the black snake yesterday.

My father the biologist is not happy with me.

DH is not happy with me (and he helped kill it -they are amazingly hard to kill).

I know it was a good snake (black snakes eat mice, squirrels, chipmunks, rattlesnakes and cottonmouths).

But damn - DD almost stepped on it, freaked her out. It was almost 4 feet long, about 2" in diameter, and was about to go in the puppy door. That means it would be in the house, or at least the back entry. And the back door doesn't fit that tight. Its second location of choice was straight out into the puppy yard.

Black snakes kill their prey by constriction, but if provoked or cornered they bite, and it's painful. Our schnauzers are getting old, one is blind, two are deaf, and one is hard of hearing. Chewy is (cover his ears), not the brightest bulb in the box. He'd try to play with it, which I'm pretty sure is "provoking" if you are the snake.

I don't need bitten dogs, or the vet bills that come with them.

I also have a yard full of black soaker hoses, that all look very much like said snake. And I have to pick them up all the time.

The hoses, not the snakes.

And while we were trying to get to it, it starting climbing and turns out they can go pretty high, and then get up into the tree next to the house, and hang over the walkway.....see where that's going?

So I killed the snake and will probably go to hell for killing A Good Snake.

And never hear the end of it from my dad and DH.

1 comment:

  1. Heck with them, you were defending your babies (and your bank balance). I for one think you did what you had to do -- unless DH was willing to pick it up and take it to another property far far away -- was he? And you did not say what I think you said about Chewy, did you? That's why you're going to heck in a handbasket --- doesn't he allow you to use his name for nothing more than dog food and a place to eat? Oh wait, maybe he isn't the brightest . . . . .

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