Posted in Homeschooling Adventures

Well, I seem to have a knack with running into poisonous creatures as it has happened on several occasions within the past year.  We live in the country and therfore we expect to see spiders, snacks, and various other creatures - not all of which are poisonous of course.  Snakes and spiders generally don't bother me, unless their bite will send me to the hospital.

So, let me brief you on some of the run-ins that I have had in the past year.  Animal lovers who don't believe in killing these creatures will not want to read on past this point!!

Black Widow Spider - P.7.G. found one of these in the laundry room one day in our laundry basket.  We promptly pulled it into the light and proceeded to determine if yes, indeed, it was a black widow.  It had the shiny "kabump" as my kids like to call it.  And after a bit of trying to flip it over, we were able to see that it did have the red hourglass on it's belly.  It was pretty upset with us after a while and it threw out some venom.  Yuck!  We killed it with a shoe, but only after we had made a lesson out of it.

Rattlesnake - this last weekend we were camping with my best girlfriend, Lone Star Academy, and her family at Fort Richardson State Park.  Some people a few sites down came by on the first night to tell us that they had seen a rattlesnake about 5 ft. long.  The kids were pretty scared because they were sleeping in a tent outside the camper.  The adults and the little kiddos were sleeping inside the camper.  We didn't see the rattler until Saturday night.  I was driving around waiting to go pick up b and her girls from the bathroom (the whole park - 60 something sites - only had 1 shower stall!!!).  And I was driving by our campsites.  I saw something in the road and thought it was a snake and then I saw the rattle sticking up at the end of it!!  I told P.7.G. to hold on, that I was about to run over the snake.  I did a TAWANDA on that thing!!  Back and forth, back and forth, over and over we went.  I realize that we could have very well gotten in trouble for killing this snake, but I really wasn't thinking about that at the time.  All I was thinking about was that my children weren't safe in that tent with that snake around!!  I went and got Big P so that he could make sure that thing was dead.  Well, it wasn't.  He proceeded to take a big rock and take care of it.  After it was all said and done, I went back to the bathroom to get b and her girls and tell her the whole story!!  Then, Big P, and M (b's husband) went and cut the rattle off.  Not for a trophy, but for a homeschool lesson!!  Isn't he sweet?!! 

And yet, my venomous critter story is not yet over!!!

Scorpion - now, granted, this was a baby one, and I don't know what that means in terms of venom, as with snakes are more venomous the smaller they are.  But, this one was crawling on my son's underwear!!  In the laundry room, the very same place that we had found the black widow!!!  It was tiny and P.7.G. called Big P on his cell while he was mowing some of the property.  She told him what we had found and he came running in, not knowing it's size.  I had caught it in a canning jar.  We put a cotton ball in it with some rubbing alcohol and it died later in the day.  It's really too tiny to do anything with in terms of dissection, but it was pretty cool to look at.  I think we may have brought this one home with us from camping.

And so, you may think that we are scared to go camping - have no fear, we will return to the big woods in just 2 weeks for a 10 day vacation camping!! :)  And we are all as excited as ever. 

But this is just evidence that God protected us 3 different times from these creatures.  Yes, He created them, and I'm sure they have their purpose on this earth.  But, it will be one of the questions that I have for God when I meet Him in Heaven.  I'm just so thankful right now that we haven't been bit by any of them and that He gave us dominion over these animals!!!  Amen?!