Give me a blessed break...

Last night was a double-whammy with the creatures that are out here on our property. And why is it that I am the one who always finds them?

I had put Mickey into the garage last night at dinner time... he goes in there willingly, eats his Fancy Feast on his little table, and then goes through the trap-door into the coop and watches the world going by as he relaxes in the fenced-in coop.

Well... on the way into the garage with his Fancy Feast favorite-flavor-of-the-moment, there was a huge tarantula crawling on the cement floor, headed straight for Mickey's side of the garage. And there was Mickey, just sitting there watching it crawling along the garage floor.  I don't think tarantulas bite, but still, I didn't want that blasted thing near my cat. I got out a can of wasp spray and aimed it at that giant furry spider and it turned itself around and started walking towards one of the overhead doors. I opened up the door a bit, gave the spider another blast of the wasp spray, and sent it out into the driveway and then I shut the door tight. So there. I surprised myself that I handled it without calling my husband. The spider went off and died somewhere, Mickey was fine except I took away his entertainment for the night, and I went back into the house without saying too many bad words about country living.

I must be used to the tarantulas by now because even though it took me by surprise when I saw it in there, I didn't freak out or scream. I just stood there for a second and said out loud "Are you kidding me?"  (The tarantula had no response.)

A couple of hours later, I was going out the back door with Savannah to let her pee in the grass before I went upstairs for the night. I was holding the screen door open, waiting for Savannah to get herself out of the door... she was stretching and taking her time getting across the kitchen.... and I thank my lucky stars for that big stretch of hers because had she been ready to walk out of that door, a chicken snake would have dropped down on my shoulders. (No, that is not a typo.)

Apparently, a brown chicken snake was perched up on the ledge over our back door... he must have been on his way to get to one of the barn swallow nests that are all over our porch. When I opened the door, he probably wasn't quite on the ledge, and the screen door caught him and sent him tumbling down onto the porch--- and thankfully not onto my head or shoulders because I was waiting just inside the door for Savannah to 'catch up' with me.

As the snake dropped down, my eyes caught the movement and I immediately knew what it was and I screamed out loud, which made Savannah back up into the kitchen, the back door slammed because I let go of it, and thankfully the snake landed outside on the porch and not inside on the kitchen floor. My husband heard me scream and he came running downstairs but by that time the snake was gone. Gary went outside on the porch and looked over the back door... and he figured out that the snake had been balancing half of his body on the ledge, half of him was dangling down on the screen door, and I just happened to open the door at the wrong moment.

Story of my life with the godforsaken wildlife out here.... I'm always at the wrong place at the wrong time and I see everything that's out there after dark. About the only thing I haven't seen yet is a bobcat, but I'm sure that will come along as well.

My husband said the solution to the snake-over-the-door problem is a round piece of wood to sit along the flat ledge that's above that back door. Hopefully, a snake won't be able to perch up there on a round surface.

My own solution is that we have to get rid of all these barn swallow nests, no matter how much we love watching the baby birds. We'll leave them up there for now because the birds are still laying eggs and raising their babies, but once they leave when the summer heat begins, I'm going to have our illustrious handyman scrape off all those nests, clean up the tops of the porch columns, and that's it... no more being a B&B for the barn swallows. Just as having a coop filled with chickens will attract snakes, these bird nests are also bringing the snakes too close to the house.

It's a wonder I was able to sleep last night without dreaming of snakes falling down on top of me. Life in the country... ain't all what it's cracked up to be.