I've been meaning to post this for a while now... This is one of those stories that Cody and I will still be laughing about several years down the road so I wanted it in writing with pictures.
Back in May, on Memorial Day, a strong thunderstorm was heading our way with 60 mph wind gusts, heavy rain, and slight hail. Storms make us a little nervous now that we are living in a trailer house (I now understand why people living in trailer houses put the tires on the roof. However, we have not succumbed to that.
Yet.)
Anyway, these storms make us nervous so Cody went to look out the back door window to check it out...
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| View from the back window |
Cody: "HOLY SHEEP COW!" and starts bouncing form one foot to the next trying to figure out what to do.
(Those actually were his words... I don't even know what that means but I know when Cody, my calm and collected husband has a reaction like that, it's means something).
My first thought it tornado, so I start rounding up the kids as I ask, "what? WHAT?"
Cody: "GET THE GUN"
Lacy: "Are you KIDDING me?" Now I think it's just a stupid coyote.. because he does get overly excited when a coyote or hog, etc is withing close enough proximity to shoot. I, now calmly, start to walk over to the door to see what he's ready to kill this time...
Cody: "GET THE GUN, that's a big rattlesnake"
Lacy: "OH, uh...which gun?!?"
Cody: bouncing back and forth about 4 feet because he can't decide if he can take his eye off the snake or go get a gun, "Get the SHOTGUN!"
Lacy: I look outside to see a large snake (they're all pretty big in my mind) leaving our backyard and heading out toward the grassy area behind our house.
Cody: "No, GET A SHOVEL", "GET ANYTHING! THAT THING HAS TO DIE!" Then he runs off to put on his boots and somewhere finds a shovel. Meanwhile, Caden is nervously looking at like we have lost our minds while we bounce around back and forth yelling.
The snake had now turned around again and was trying to get under the skirting of our house to get out of the rain that started to pour down. It was raining so hard and we were both running around like crazy people so the dogs and kids needed to get out of the way. I locked the dogs and Hadley up in our room and closed Caden in his room to keep Trip (our crazy blue heeler puppy) away from him.
Still yelling so I can hear him over the loud trailer house wind, Cody says, "I'm going to need help killing this one."
Oh geez.
I put my boots on, opened the back door and barely managed to push myself out due to the strong winds coming from the West. I grabbed the hoe and spotted the snake now in the shape of a U with half of it's body in the fenced area, and the other half looped around this t-post.
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| Worst fence ever to stand on while killing a snake... |
The snake was in wedged in these tight spaces which made him much harder for us to get hold of, not to mention it was crazy strong. The rain was pouring horizontally from the 60 mph wind gusts, and it was actually
painful. Cody was standing with both feet on the flimsy fence we have and leaning over it trying to pin the snake's head down while I was standing on the dogloo trying to pin its body down to keep him still. We could barely see anything with our faces in the rain (Cody later described it like trying kill a snake while looking straight up into a running shower facet). So while he holding the snake down I put my baseball cap on his head to shield some of the rain off his eyes.
It wasn't long before the snake got away, and started trying to head back to the lot behind our house. Cody lunges and spears the snake (while on the flimsy fence) and flings him back toward the house all while saying, "NO, this thing has to die." So here we go again, Cody is now just randomly stabbing the snake while I try my best to steady the fence Cody is standing on because the way that thing was swaying back and forth, I was too worried Cody was going to end up face down in the grass with the snake. Eventually the snake was died
(Poor thing, I wanted it dead but was hoping for a quick painless death). We climbed back on the deck, hurried back in the house with boots FILLED with water, only to find the electricity was out.
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| Post-snake self portrait: Still soaked and Cody wearing my cap |
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| Hard to see in the picture but Cody's back and chest were red and swollen from the hard rain. |
Once we got back in the house, Caden was still closed up in his room crying. His room doesn't have any windows so it was completely dark with the electricity out. I'm sure we scared him and he associated it with the storm.
Once the storm passed we went outside to check out the snake. It measured 5'6" exactly and had 12 rattlers and a button.
eek! This was really scary for us because we often let Caden play around the backyard by himself with the dogs.
We did take Caden outside to show him the snake, and tell him to stay away from them. I wanted him to know that's what all the fuss was about, not the storm. He kind of got the idea, for the next couple of weeks he became a little obsessive about it and frequently talked about "nake!!" Unfortunately, ever since this day, he gets scared every time he hears thunder. Poor little guy.
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