Thursday, January 28, 2010

DON'T LOOK - if you don't like snakes!

Yes; another day, another creepy, crawly, slithering, biting critter. Don't say I didn't warn you, okay?

I wasn't even going to put this one on the blog. I mean really, it isn't even poisonous, so why bother? But after taking pictures and all, I thought I might as well put them here.

The story behind the snake:

The girl cats (we have three) live in the team house, where the older children currently have their bedrooms. Recently, the girl cats have been delivering gifts to Rachel and Bethany's bedroom with alarming regularity. The gifts have included dead mice, scorpions, and lizards.

This morning, the girls awoke to find the cats playing with a small snake in their bedroom. The snake wasn't moving, so the girls scooped it up into a shallow dish and brought it to show to me. We do think it best to try to identify the snakes here, so we are aware of which are poisonous, you know.

So, the girls hand me this dish with the snake, and tell me that it is a dead snake the cats had in their room. I take the snake, and am looking at it quite closely when . . . it MOVES!

Well, I think I might have screamed, and the snake definitely flew through the air (along with the dish) and landed on the floor. Since the snake was stunned (again), the girls scooped it up into a larger container (with a lid, this time). No live snake loose in the house = a good thing, I'm thinking!

We've been looking online for an identification for the snake, but meanwhile one of our workers has told us that it is locally called a "garbage snake" because these snakes are often found burrowing in the trash. It is also not poisonous, so we can be grateful for that!

Now, here's the snake:




Eventually, I believe, I will post on something other than bugs and snakes. I sort of hope it will be soon. :-D

6 comments:

J said...

I hope a snake in a bedroom remains blog-worthy. If it becomes too mundane to mention on the blog, your visitors will be in for a rude awakening!

Unknown said...

Good story! You can tell this one to your grandkids one day! I grew up in the countryside, and I was generally not afraid of snakes. But I would have been screaming with you if this had happened to me.

The Hayes Zoo said...

Oh boy....Did Moppet bring you that one???

Aren't they sweet to be bringing you such treasures.

Yuck. :) But the dead ones are better that *live* ones.

Trish said...

Jennifer, that is a very good point! I, too, will hope and pray that snakes in the bedrooms remain rare and blog-worthy events!

Thanks for the empathy, Laurie!

Faith, it was Moppet and her daughter, Sunshine, who were playing with the snake when the girls woke up. We don't know for sure which cat actually brought it into the room. I guess we don't know for sure that the cats brought it in at all (perhaps the snake brought itself in, and then the cats caught it?), but the assumption is that the cats brought it in. Perhaps that just makes the girls feel better about the whole thing?

Missus Wookie said...

cute snake, what pretty markings and it is quite a danty one too. But I'm not sure I'd want it in my bedroom, except in a nice glass case :)

Stephanie said...

Great story and equally great reactions with flinging it away! I have to confess that I can deal with most "critters" but cockroaches can still elicit a "girl shriek" from me and spiders larger than a matchbox can make me very nervous.
You're not giving a bad impression, simply telling the truth about the mundane realities of living in this beautiful country... Thanks!