Anti-Murphy's Law and Snakes and Junky Lawn Mowers

Wouldn't you know...the minute I say I'm going to start sharing all the things that happen in my life that don't happen to other people and are just crazy and weird....nothing happens.  So I'll have to share a story from the past....

When I first met my husband, it was October.  By summer, I thought I was getting the hang of this country stuff.  So, while he was away I thought I would venture out to his house and weed the garden.  MY VERY FIRST GARDEN!! Was so excited.  While I won't go into great detail about how stupid I was about gardening back then, I will say, we planted a garden the size of texas and I bought a hand held rake thing to weed it....yeah, I now know better....handheld rakes are good for NOTHING.  But anyway....

While I was out there, I also discovered, and had my first encounter with a real live, outside living, wild, not in a zoo. SNAKE.  YES A SNAKE...right outside the front door.  How did I see the snake? Well when I walked out it JUMPED AT ME.  Seriously...it JUMPED...snakes JUMP.  Really they do, I promise...(and yes there is a witness to this story to verify it's validity).  So what did the brave girl do?  I SCREAMED and turned and ran back into the house.  Was it a big snake?  No, not really, but shut up! It was a SNAKE. 

So then, what did I do? What any girl would do...I called my dad.  Who, by the way, was at a birthday party in Minnesota.  Yes, Yes, I got the response one would think when you call your dad who is four hours away about something like this..."what do you want me to do about it?".  Uhm...well....I don't know....but DAD, there is a SNAKE JUMPING AT ME!  I can just see the look on his face as he hung up the phone...and probably was questioned on what was so wrong that I had to call him at a birthday party in Minnesota.  I'm a bit of a daddy's girl....I call my dad for a lot.  I'm sure he was the happiest guy (and laughing and laughing) when I married Dave.  I do believe there is some type of secret payment going on behind the scenes so that Dave doesn't leave me and give me back to my father.....

So, there I sat...trapped...in the house.  After about an hour, I decided the snake had to be gone...went out...NOPE, it JUMPED AT ME AGAIN! And I jumped high into the air, did a twirl that would rival the best gymnasts and back into the house I went.  I then decided, I needed local help and called a newly found friend who was the wife of one of my husband's friends.  She wasn't home, but I did leave a dramatic, I'm in danger, hurry up, come help, I'm going to die kind of voicemail.  Hours went by before she showed up. 

She walked into the house and said...what is the problem??? I said did you see it? The snake out there?  She gave me the look of "you are on drugs" and said uhm, no.  I said "oh shut up...", walked outside and BAM THE SNAKE JUMPED AT ME.  She saw it then. And she started laughing.  The snake did NOT jump at her, it didn't even notice her......but when I came out it was right there ready to attack and kill me. 

I was a least a little pleased that someone actually did see this happen....I mean, really, I can't make this stuff up.  It never once, in the time she was there and laughing and making jokes, did that snake jump at her as she came out the door but it did EVERY SINGLE TIME jump at me.  I finally just demanded that she kill the thing before it moved in and took up residence in the house.  I was then given a very valuable lesson on killing snakes with a shovel.  And I have gotten quite good at it. 

We then decided to make plans to go out that night. Afterall, I had something to celebrate...I was saved from the very (non) DEADLY, (non) POISONOUS, (not so) BIG garden snake, but first I needed to finish weeding the garden.  She offered to help so off we went.  Then she saw me get down on my knees with the hand held rake and get to work and laughter rang out again...I looked at her and she said what the HECK are you doing? "Weeding the garden...why?" Get a hoe for crying out loud!  What did I know...I had my cute pink gloves and green handled garden weeder...or so I thought.  We never did finish weeding that garden, nor in the end did I get anything out of that garden because the rabbits ate it all...which then became a war on the rabbit population...which is a whole other story.

The next week, while Dave was gone again, I was out hanging at the river, there was a knock on the door.  I looked out the window and their was his cousin and uncle and I very welcoming and happy, opened the door to my visitors.  WHOA....should not have been so eager.  There they were standing with a broom, and around that broom was a snake as big around as a baseball bat and longer than I am tall. (I'm pretty darn tall).  "I about hurled my lunch right then and there". They..ever so nonchalantly said "Is this the snake that had you "trapped" in the house?".  I couldn't even speak...I didn't even know snakes grew that big in the wild, outside, in Wisconsin, out of a cage at the zoo.  I said "NOOOOOOOOOOO, what is THAT?"  WHERE DID THAT THING COME FROM??? They said "oh in the house next door....it lives in there to eat the mice".  Are you freaking KIDDING ME?  I shut the door rather quickly, no way was that thing getting any closer to me.  Oh they thought they were so funny, bringing that thing over and telling me everyone has one in their house to keep the mice under control.  I started to wonder....are there snakes in THIS HOUSE???? It was a question that definitely needed some answers.  So months later, or a year or so later, my husband asked us to move in with him. I said many times...nope, not living with snakes.  He could not assure me enough that there was never a snake in his house ever.  After all, there were plenty of things he and his friends told me, knowing I didn't know any better, just to get a laugh. I learned to be wary of anything they told me.

Finally, I opted to believe him and in we moved.  About a week or so later, we were sitting in the living room having a chat and all of a sudden I noticed he wasn't really paying attention to me.  His eyes kept shifting oddly towards the kitchen and then quickly back to me.  I said. "what is your problem" and looked towards the kitchen and yep...you guessed it...a SNAKE.  And this was not a normal grass or garden snake this was a RED SNAKE.  A red and black snake...definitely a poisonous snake that would kill me and my son in our sleep....yes I freaked out...threw a fit like a sissy, swore I'd never believe another word he said, and I'm sure I had the neighbors believing he was beating me senseless.  This snake did not jump at me though....but the snake that was outside that hot July afternoon did...and it only jumped at me....no one else. I swear.

I have since learned to kill a snake with the best of them ... just give me a metal shovel...(plastic ones don't work so well) and I will have the head chopped off of it so fast you won't know what hit you.  Sadly, or rather...no, not sadly...very happily, we no longer live with the snakes at the river.  At least I have not seen a snake here where we live now yet...people say they are around, I have not seen one...except for the green grass snake the neighbor boy found in some hay bales they brought to their place to put over their grass seed.  He came over, knocked on the patio door (we had just moved here, so I didn't know him well enough yet to know better...now I do). I walked to the door and opened it and that little bugger threw the snake at me into my house.  Yep, I screamed, jumped back, did the twirl that defies all gravity and told him to get that snake OUT OF MY HOUSE.  He ran in, grabbed it and said he was going home...but as he was leaving threw it back onto my deck. Laughing and laughing....me not so much.

Oh the things I have learned from living in the country that really I should not know how to do.  And oh how grateful I was for that friend that day. A. to save me from the snake and B. to be able to give truth to my story...because surely no one would believe me otherwise.  And oh the things she would learn about me...and the things that she learned that I needed to learn. Like...horses...do lay down and they aren't dead if they lay down. Yes, horses sleep standing up, but they also lay down when they are tired in the middle of the field....

Until next time...keep your eyes open for snakes and a shovel close by!