Sorry for the dramatic title and I'm also sorry that there are no pictures. :( Once you hear the story you'll understand why.
Tuesday I went to the basement to search for some yarn so I had something to work on during Darly's activities...she had voice lessons AND rehearsal that day.
When I go to reach for my yarn what should I see?
In my basement?
A SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay breathe... it was just a small garden snake. about a food long and no bigger around than your thumb.
First question: HOW DID IT GET IN HERE???? no idea (still!)
Second question: HOW IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO GET IT OUT OF HERE????? especially since we had to leave for Darly's voice lesson.
Darly came down and we tried to get the snake, but it crawled under a cabinet before we could catch him and we had to leave...so we just had to hope that we could find him when we got back.
I grabbed some yarn and we left.
When we returned the snake was in a sunny spot near the window. GOOD! easy to find.
But it was in the set of wire cube shelves. BAD! easy for him to get away again. SIGH!
So I went to the garage and got some snake catching tools... leather work gloves (in case he bites!), a plastic child snow shovel (why do we still have this???) and a bucket to put him in.
I used several items from the basement to block the snake from escaping again...we also tried to get the snake to come out into the open...but the snake wasn't that dumb.
The snake went behind the wire shelves. sigh
So I moved the shelves and a bunch of other stuff. Luckily the floor where the snake ended up was very cold, so he wasn't in the mood to move very fast.
Eventually I was able to use... none of the snake catching equipment I had brought... I took a plastic shoe box and put it over the snake. Then I took a part from some scrapbooking storage thingy a friend gave us to scoop up the snake alike you do with a bug, glass & cardboard.
The snake...now dubbed Melvin was witness relocated (after many yells at Lilly to get out of my way) to the strawberry patch of my garden. He didn't seem all that upset by his move once he got there. But I haven't seen him since.
In other news it has been storming like crazy here (perhaps the reason Melvin sought shelter in our house?), lots of warnings of bad things, but so far just rain.
I hate it when that happens! So glad you escaped unscathed. I'm sure Melvin is thinking the same thing about himself. :)
ReplyDeleteI guess I should have added in all the empathy that Darly had for Melvin. First she was all worried about him being stuck in the basement with no snake food or water and finding him dead. Then no snake catching could involve anything that would scare him too much or hurt him in any way. Perhaps I shouldn't have let her know he was there?
DeleteWow, you're nicer than me. When we had a snake last summer on the back patio, I chopped it into bits with an adult garden hoe...
ReplyDeleteNow I feel bad.
See that's exactly what DH would have done as well. He is so scared of snakes that he doesn't see any purpose in keeping them alive. Luckily we were able to capture Melvin and put him in the witness protection BEFORE DH got home or he would have suffered a similar fate and then I would be left cleaning snake blood from my basement.
Delete