The Snake Pit

I walked into our weekend house on Saturday, leaving my husband on the phone in the car and the children still extricating themselves from the various cords and electronic devices they needed to fill the excruciating 2.5 hour drive. I opened the back sliding glass door to take a big cleansing breath and take in the beauty and peace of the water. As I walked by a planter (with a fake plant in it, natch, since I can't sustain a real plant at the home I live in full time), I decided to check if there was a key in there since it was one of my hiding places. I pulled up the fake moss surrounding the plant and saw something orange-ish...and it slithered!!!! I screamed and ran back out. Then I came back and took a picture. Then my husband yelled at me for going back out there with my camera.

Anyway, the purpose of the picture was to determine if it was a dangerous snake or not. When I blew up the picture to look closely at the markings, here is what I saw:

If you look carefully, you can see the orange-ish color and the markings. This meant nothing to us, so we called our friend Danny to come over and help us. When I jumped and screamed at first, I didn't look closely because I was too startled. Then when I looked at this picture, I saw anaconda with a body as big as my arm curled up and waiting to strike from the seemingly innocuous planter. Danny came in with his gun, prepared to shoot it. But the planter was in a corner, backed by concrete walls, so Danny figured it wouldn't be wise to take a chance on the bullet ricocheting and killing one of us. THAT would sure put a damper on my birthday weekend!!!

We called Animal Control and they promised to send someone. So we took turns keeping watch from a chair by the sliding glass door. Text messages were flying with my friends, including Andrea who encouragingly texted, "F*** the planter! Shoot it!!!"

After a couple hours, one of Brevard County's finest was at our door. I'm showing him my picture on my laptop...he didn't even flinch...just walked out there, reached his hand in and:

Yes, tales of the snake's size may have been slightly exaggerated due to the clarity of my zoomed-in photograph. We were informed that it was a harmless red rat snake...I'm sorry, but a critter that includes BOTH "rat" and "snake" in its name is not something I want to be too close to. Apparently they are good to have in your yard because they eat cockroaches and other stuff that you don't want in your house.

Even my son, after great consideration and hesitance, briefly touched it:

A red rat snake wasn't exactly the birthday surprise I was looking for...but it will make it a memorable day!

Di