I tried to escape for a few minutes at lunchtime today.  I'd fixed food for all of the kiddos and felt too lazy to fix anything for myself, so I grabbed a bag a mini carrots and went outside to sit down and revel in the quiet.  (Lunchtime is like a big party around here for some reason.  It drives me batty sometimes.) 

"I'll go admire my new tomato garden," I thought to myself.  So I went over to sit down on the side of the swingset and look at the two little plants that I managed to get into the ground yesterday.  Yes, that's my tomato garden.  Two plants.  I LOVE tomatoes, but alas, nobody else in the family appreciates their delicious goodness, and there's only so much I can eat all by myself.  Anyway, it was almost a miracle that I found the time during baseball season to plant them, so I'm a happy gardener. 

I sat for all of about 3 minutes, when suddenly I had a visitor.  With scales.  No legs.  Man, that was the biggest snake I've seen since we've lived here, and I didn't recognize his markings.  We catch tiny brown garden snakes pretty frequently, but this guy was probably almost 2 1/2 feet long and black with yellow markings.  He slithered right by me in the grass, then THROUGH my lovely little tomato garden, and halfway through the fence to the front yard.  I start waving wildly toward the window hoping that the kids will notice me (educational moment, you know?), to no avail.  I tried yelling, but the moving men across the street were looking at me funny, so I carefully got up and went over to rap on the window. 

We had nearly 10 minutes of excitement trying to safely catch him, b/c I thought, if he's dangerous, I'm not letting him go, I'm too chicken to try to chop him with a shovel or something, and even if he's not venomous, I don't want something so BIG and scary in my yard.  He was so strong, it's amazing. 

We did corral him eventually, and after identifying him as an Eastern black kingsnake (harmless, eats other snakes), we decided to release him in the bit of woods behind our house.  He'll probably be back, but I rather hope that I don't meet him again.