Creepy, Crawly Things

Fall time has been exciting. First, we will mention critters in the yard. When we came home from church one day I was looking over at the flower bed, and close to the house I noticed something odd, then it moved! AAAHHHH! A snake! Anyone who knows me knows that there is one thing that I detest more than anything else. (As a matter of fact, the first time Dave heard me scream was when we were first married and a snake slithered into our apartment, but that is another story!) Dave was with the kids in a car behind me, and valiantly searched for it, but never was able to get it. Needless to say, I avoided the flower bed for a while. About a week later Spencer and a friend were in our backyard playing with the girls. One of the girls spotted a snake! Emma proceeded to tell the boys that a boy in her class caught a snake at the school. Not to be outdone by someone younger, they worked and worked and finally Reese (the friend) caught it. He wanted to take it home. Well, I was more than happy to find him a gift bag to send it home with him in. (You know a sweet gift for his mother). He was a bit disappointed that the only gift bag that I would give him was a Hello Kitty one. Not very manly I know. Anyway, his mother was a saint and took it home when she came to get him.

About a week later Dave was painting our front porch and heard a slither over by the water tap in the flower bed. Sure enough it was a snake. He was so proud to tell me that he had caught it and disposed of it for me. My hero. That same day however Sadee came running over to me saying that she saw a snake over by the garage. Yes, a third snake in a week!! I went over and saw it poking its head out of the crack in the driveway. Of course I kept a safe distance while my hero worked at catching it. Oh, I did leap (and I mean leap) over it one time to get Dave something that would reach into the crack to scare it up. He did get it, and took it even farther away than the first one.

A few days after that, I was walking down the steps in my garage and as I reached the bottom step, I noticed a striped thing awaiting me at the bottom. I couldn't tell if it was a lizard or a snake. My momentum was already there, so I had to jump over it and run out into the backyard where Dave was. I could see it from the door to the yard, and I was keeping an eye on it. Well, Dave has this new way of doing yard work. He puts in his ipod earbuds, then puts on Spencers ear protectors (worn for shooting guns) over the top to shut out outside noise. (Needless to say, I am usually too embarrased to talk to him while he is out there looking like that, but I felt this critter in our garage needed to be escorted out). I yelled his name over and over. I did not want to leave my post where I could see it, so I started waiving my arms wildly in the air. Still no response from my knight in shining armour. (Good thing no one was taking me away or something). I continued to do this for a minute, then realizing that it was hopeless, I was forced to leave my post and walk barefoot over all of our pine needles to get to him. When I finally got his attention, we returned to the garage to find my critter missing. Dave hunted for me, but did not find it. A little bit later he saw it in the garage, it was a lizard. It was under the van and then ran to the large garage door that was closed. I opened it to let him out. He actually held on to the bottom of the door. Dave went and knocked him loose and steered him into our neighbor's yard. I hope they like lizards. I have to admit that once I found out it was a lizard and not a snake, I was able to relax.

During those couple of weeks, I saw 2 dead snakes in the road, and Spencer saw a live one in the road as well. There must have been a population boost of snakes this year. I had only seen one dead one in all of the 3 years that we have lived in the area. (Dave did later admit that he removed one from our yard the first fall that we were here, but had sworn Spencer to secrecy!)

We also have seen 3 tarantulas this year. I have not seen any of those in the past up here either.

Today we had 2 elk cross the road as we were driving up the street in our neighborhood. Quite the year for us and living in the wild. (No signs of Javelina yet this year. We did have 8 or 9 of them invade our garden last year).

On a positive note, there has been a cold front this week, and maybe all of the snakes are going into hibernation. While they do, we are filling in our cracks in our driveway!! (I also saw some snake be gone stuff at Home Depot at the beginning of the year, maybe we will try it next year!) At least they were garter snakes and not rattlers like my good friend April had in her yard last year. And, I have yet to see a bear in our yard though neighbors have seen them. I guess this is what you get when you move to a beautiful place!