How does a week go by?

Cause, people, it’s not like I’m not doing stuff. In fact, if I were self publishing a book of doings, I’d use up all the toner in half of the copiers Tidewater VA. I guess that’s part of the issue. I’ve been so busy doing that by the time I get done, I am ready to go to bed, and not sit up typing the stories. Well, that and my late night phone calls. Smile.

Hey, did you guys see this picture I posted on Facebook yesterday?
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That, my friends, is a Deadsnake. It was a copperhead, though I didn’t know it at the time. And I have a story about it. It’s not just a snake, see. And it really doesn’t matter what kind of snake it was. That right there, people, is a picture of mousy me confronting fear head on.

Yesterday, I burned trash in my yard for the second day straight. I picked up the next to last piece, which happened to be a huge piece of old wooden siding and underneath was this snake, all coiled up on itself. Now, I had just put a big piece on the fire, and I couldn’t afford to turn my back on it for long, because the flames were almost my height there for a bit. So, I laid the board right back down on the snake and I tended that fire until it got down a good bit. Then I told my first born son to go get the phone and come here. He argued with me a bit, because I hadn’t told him why I needed the phone and he wanted to be in the house, but eventually he came out with the phone. I told him I wanted him to use the rake to lift that board because there was a snake under and I had to kill it. Uh, my son, he is afraid of the snakes. Just like his mama used to be. And there was no talking him into that. At all. So I told him, “Fine, I’ll do both, you just watch and if it bites me, call 911.”

So I moved the board with the rake, and I got the hoe and I took a whack. And the darn thing slithered off into the grass, right toward my children, who were playing in the back yard. So, I whacked where he’d had been, and I looked for him. And I eventually saw his tail, because for some reason he had turned back to me. I guess the children’s noise or something made him turn around. I didn’t even pause to realize that if I was seeing his TAIL right there, his HEAD must be about there. You know, next to my LEG. I just started swinging that hoe. And I swung it many times in quick succession and I killed that snake. And then I took a few pictures. And then I picked it up with the rake and I threw it in the fire and I burned it. That’s the story of yesterday’s snake.

But there’s another fairly important story behind that one. It’s about the last time I saw a snake. Actually, two snakes, one one day and one the next. That led to the “great lawn mowing of ’08”, which I blogged about. Here’s the thing I didn’t blog about then, unless I did, but if I did, I’m telling it again. I had called my then-husband home when I saw the first snake, which was also a copperhead, under the tree roots near the fence, near the kid’s swingset. It was gone before he got here, but he came. The next day, I saw a huge black snake under the shed. It was so big I thought it was a bicycle tire until I saw the scales on it. I almost vomited in fear. I called him again, and my voice was shaking I was so scared. And that man told me to “quit being a pansy” and hung up. So, being a fearless warrior of a woman, I hopped in the shower to think and also get the stench of adrenaline and fear off of me. And then I got the shovel and went after the snake. Of course, it was gone before I got there, and the very next day, I mowed my entire half acre yard, which hadn’t been mowed in a couple of months, the last bit beyond the fence in over a year, but I was NOT gonna let one of my kids be eaten up by some huge demon snake. Not on my watch, husband be damned. And now you know the story behind the caption “Call me a pansy again, you hapless mf’er.”

I told you things were changing for me. Yesterday, I killed a snake, and I didn’t start shaking until after he was burnt slap up.