Friday, April 27, 2012, Noon

This just happened at my house. I was sitting in the swing transferring potting soil into buckets and chatting with friend Raine who was helping me. Suddenly her voice became quiet and urgent, and she said "Don't move. There's a snake coming up on the porch behind you."
I only looked down and left to right to see if I could spot it, but it was behind me in the grass coming up on the concrete slab of the porch. Raine says "Do you have anything to kill a snake? I told her to get the old hoe next to the refrigerator, a tool I've kept there for years just for such rare contingencies.

The hoe was rusty and the blade was dull as cardboard, so Raine had to whack at the snake over and over. Finally it stopped moving. She took a picture with her cell phone and sent it to her husband Teddy, and texted him to find out what it was. By then the varmint was moving again, so Raine chopped at it till it was nearly decapitated. Teddy was texting "Don't kill it--it's a chicken snake, a good snake."
We both went HAH! The only good snake is a dead snake no matter how good it is. It looked like Hitler to me!

Raine put the photo on her Facebook page, and everyone was saying the same thing as Teddy. Well, as long as a snake stays where I can't see it I won't bother it, but when it's bold enough to come right up on the porch between my feet, it's a dead duck.
So now brave Raine is my official Dragon Slayer, who lays waste to slithery creatures!
PS Anybody who likes snakes is a daffy person in my book.

susil