And the fun begins ... UGGGHHHH!

Cory has been trying to prepare Rafe and me for the possibility of seeing snakes around our house this summer since we have a pool and woods all around us. Well we had our first round of excitement this afternoon. Rafe, Gram and I were playing outside after school today when Rafe decided he needed to go inside for something. He walked into our garage (that we had pulled into only 10 minutes before) and calmly came out saying, "There's a snake in there. There's a snake on the steps." I just knew he was joking because he loves to play tricks on me, especially about critters. Unfortunately he wasn't. This he what he saw:


Needless to say Gram and I freaked out. There are no two people on earth more scared of snakes than us. What are we supposed to do? There were no men around, Cory works too far away and Pop was too busy to leave his job. We watched it make its way up the stairs that lead into my back door and then it disappeared. I knew there was no way it had gone under the door, but I was beginning to worry when it didn't surface after a while. Well, thank goodness for Gram. We got the LONG net from our pool and one by one she moved everything around until we found it. This is how Rafe helped:

This is Gram, crippled foot and all. She is such a trooper! After we found it she pushed it with the pole and moved it out of the garage.

Once it was finally outside we didn't want it going back in. Luckily some Charter workers were across the street. I asked them if they were scared of black snakes and they assured me they weren't. So our "hero" came to take care of the snake for us. I'm so glad they were working in my neighborhood today. He picked the snake up by the head and carried it to the woods across the street.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I will remain a Charter customer for life!! Now I am going to take a nap. I am exhausted after all of that excitement.