Sep. 16, 2009 - ~SNAKES!!! but only half of them.....
It's evening and hubby and I decide to check on a few things. We head outside.... I decide to clean out the garden pools while he does some maintenance on the mower.
"The grass in our neighbors yard is getting a little high. Sure hope no snakes are hiding in there. Wonder why I always think of a rattle snake when I think of snakes. Hmmm..." and on the thoughts go.
So I clean out a couple of the pools and think of all the satisfying things I will grow and everything I think of is multiplied, because that's how dreaming goes. I arise from the bend a little sore and a lot dirty on the hands and head over to the water spicket to clean off all my dirty diggets. I bend down, turn on the spicket and notice the snake hole. "That's okay I've seen him before. He's big but he's not a rattlesnake and that's all that matters". And I finish quickly and head up the little hill to check on our lonesome apple tree that lost her sister Anna.
"She's doing fine, thank the Lord, but the grass sure is high. I hope no snakes are hiding in this tall grass. I hope no rattle snakes are hiding in this tall grass."
And I tread through the hill to check on the citrus......
The first thing I notice is a big blob of poo on one of the leaves (yes, this is extremely imperative to the story....hang on), and I think to myself "I hope that bird didn't have bird flu" because unfortunately, that's how I think. I notice some of the leaves don't look well and check on the other lime tree and notice the same. I run my hand over the small tree, touching the leaves and touching something else! I jerk my hand back and think my mind is playing tricks on me. I examined my thumb, because that's what I touched the mouth of the rattlesnake with! My thumb is fine and I just cannot believe it! I stare at that rattlesnake and he's as still as can be but he's still hissing at me!
I stare. He's hissing. But, he looks so weird. I lean a little closer and realize he's lost most of his body. It's just his head! Then two thoughts enter my mind almost simultaneously..... "Ah ha! he can't hurt me, there's only half of him" and "That half is the dangerous part!". So I run to the crazy man doing large loops on the mower. I wave with both hands. Running.....waving.....yelling......"why won't that man look up at me?! For goodness sakes doesn't he even have a clue his wife almost got bit by a rattlesnake?!" And then he sees me........ we meet in the middle of the hill and he jumps off the machine. He can tell it's serious and follows quickly after me. I don't say a word because I'm a little out of breath, but I don't want to waste any time either. So just when we reach the tree I say: "Be careful now. There's a rattlesnake in there and I touched his tongue". Which is the truly funny part because even now I'm picturing his face looking at me in disbelief as his wife literally leads him unknowingly to the venemous snake.
At this I'm pointing and he does not see it. "Right there", I said to him. Then he gets a glimpse and grabs his ax (which was laying right there on the ground!). He pokes it with his ax and out comes the tongue. He leans in for a closer look and I remind him to be careful. "That's not rattlesnake", he says in a sort of confused voice. "Oh yes it is! It's half aa rattlesnake" I tell him. "What is that?", he says as if he didn't even hear me. Louder I repeat my previous statement..... "It's a rattlesnake head and that's the part you have to worry about because he's still alive!"
He pokes it again and says it's some sort of caterpillar. Which did not convince me in the least because he did not say it with enough confidence. I just knew it was a rattlesnake, well.....until he put it on his ax and began to examine it, at that point I was starting to think it was something else. But that's when I went to the other tree and studied that blob of bird poo. Which was also a very strange caterpillar. We ended up finding 5 caterpillars on the two trees. We did a little research and some of these things are quite deceiving, which is what I was tonight.....deceived. And that's the story of my evening brush with death with the rattlesnakes in our backyard.
He pokes it again and says it's some sort of caterpillar. Which did not convince me in the least because he did not say it with enough confidence. I just knew it was a rattlesnake, well.....until he put it on his ax and began to examine it, at that point I was starting to think it was something else. But that's when I went to the other tree and studied that blob of bird poo. Which was also a very strange caterpillar. We ended up finding 5 caterpillars on the two trees. We did a little research and some of these things are quite deceiving, which is what I was tonight.....deceived. And that's the story of my evening brush with death with the rattlesnakes in our backyard.
I had to quickly jot this down because it's silly things like this that we want to remember. And guess what.....we're getting a sort of unit study from the ordeal. It turns out that these caterpillars will soon be swallowtail butterflies. We've collected 5 of them and the children will be cleaning out the aquarium and building a habitat today. So far we know what they are and what they eat and they held that jar full of rattlesnakes caterpillars forever last night.
Comments
Sep. 17, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
wow!
how cute - the story that is!
butterflies- exciting :O)
we just recently took care of a monach caterpillar and had the priveledge of watching it cocoon and hatch. truly remarkable. I added pictures of it on mt blog.
Happy homeschooling & many blessings,
Deanna @
www.mrsmarcum.blogspot.com
