Rattlesnake!

Some excitement here! In addition to our usual "clean-up" of black widows, we found another "friend." James went to chop down some weeds in our front yard, which is quite small, and heard a rattle in the bushes; then he saw a snake wiggle out. He came to tell me he thought we had a rattlesnake in our front yard, which I of course, didn't believe. So we went out and Big James pushed the weeds a little, and we heard more rattling. Then we started believing! :) We called our neighbor over, Nick Ryan, who had lived in "the woods" for awhile and was used to lots of rattlesnakes. We pushed the weeds aside and sure enough there was a snake--quite a small one, but STILL a rattlesnake--in our front yard! Well, we took care of it. Our neighbor said that actually rattlesnakes are protected animals, but as we had a lot more "animals" around, he would defer to protect them. Being our next door neighbor, and by default hearing all our "living" sounds each day, I'll have to smile at him referring to our sweet children as "animals!" :)

Bro. Ryan, victorious!

Our unwelcome guest