Something to Blog about!

Okay- I finally have something worth blogging about! Guess what I just killed? (How's that for an "opener"?)
Well, I've been happily discovering all the beautiful flower beds around our new home. Mostly, just raking out the leaves and cleaning up... It's been beautiful weather here. The original owner was a Master Gardner - but the house was empty for awhile and everything is a bit "wild" now.

So, back to the story... I'm scooping up piles of leaves - with my hands, Luke calls for my attention and I look up and stop for a minute.. when I look back down and begin to reach for the next pile - I spy a HUGE - GOLD and BLACK - FOR SURE - POISONOUS SNAKE!!! Arghhhh!
So, I calmly went to the garage - hunted down a shovel and cut it's head off, and chopped it into several more pieces just to make sure it was dead! Luke told me to be careful - since he learned that snakes can still bite, even after their head is seperated from their body... Homeschooled kids are so useful to have around! I'm very sure I saved our family from grave danger - it must have been a Copperhead! (Well, I do confess that I did a little "internet research" and maybe I was mistaken and it was only a harmless brown snake... but - one can never be sure!) Anyway, Luke is calling me a "Redwall Warrior" - very high praise indeed! He even told me he would have chopped it to pieces with his bare hands - if it had bit me - isn't he awesome?!)

I left what was left of it on the driveway - partly to show it to Matt and partly to let others of it's kind know what I will do to them if I see them!

Today, I decided to return to finish the job with the leaves... after lying in bed thinking about how all the leaves attack the critters, and how scared I am to reach into a pile of leaves, but if I don't get rid of the leaves, there'll be more critters... round and round. I began wildly batting every leaf pile before approaching it - just to be sure. I was wearing my "snake armor" - boots, gloves, chain mail...

Ok, so far so good - no snakes, leaves almost gone in this "danger area"... Then I spotted something even more gross... a dead "something" with fur! I guess the rat saw what I did to the snake yesterday, and dropped dead out of shear fear of me!

That's it - I'm turning into an "indoor gardener"...