Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Adj.1.cityfied - being or having the customs or manners or dress of a city person

Amen.

I guess I was feeling a little too comfortable in this rural situation. The universe needed to remind me that I'm a city girl.

Today, in a rush, I came home during a 30 minute lunch to give the dogs a mid-day break. This is usually D's job as he has a long lunch, but is currently out of town. Anyway I ran inside, kicked off my painful shoes and opened the door for the pups. I stayed inside to fix a quick lunch. Suddenly a flurry of barking drew me outside to find the dogs barking madly at a neighbor walking by. No biggie. Since I was shoeless, I had walked out into the yard by hopping from rock to rock laid out in a nice little path. I turned around to go back inside along my rocky path and looked down. This is what I saw.



I had just stepped directly over this lovely little Texas hazard. I froze, backed away out on the grass, grabbed the dogs and made a rather wide circular path back inside. Knowing my tendency to freak out, and not wanting to appear completely ignorant of snake types, (which I am) I immediately do a Google image search on rattlesnakes. Yep, I'd say that's a positive ID. To cover my bases I even checked out pictures of bull snakes just in case I was mistaken. I wasn't.

I then realized that it was time to return to work, but had just enough time to reach back out the door and snap that quick photo. Not bad for leaning way over and just hoping I'm pointing the camera in the right direction, no? Anyway rest assured, universe, I know my place. No more cute shoes out here. I've got my boots and I'll wear them with a dress if I have to.

By the way, this is now what I intend to keep just outside the back door.


All ax wielding maniacs are welcome to come by and try to chop us to bits with our own ax. Just mind the snakes.

5 comments:

Rebecca said...

glad you walked around it !!

Anonymous said...

Eek. I hate snakes, especially when they "surprise" you by showing up completely unannounced. We used to do the ol' head chopping thing after identifying whether or not they were poisonous. But it was never a rattlesnake. Scary.
FYI: we also dissected a snake once. Viva la country mouse!!
~The Booklahver

tiny robot said...

When i was a kid, there was a Cottonmouth outside my bedroom window. My mom went and got the axe and our neighbor---she handed him the axe and he chopped the head off the snake with one quick motion. I remember the snake's head flew off and landed somewhere in the yard. Then mom got a shovel and scooped up the snake's body and hurled it over the fence into the woods.

Quite a show outside my bedroom, yo? Very cool.

tiny robot said...

Oh, and I'm glad you and El Pups are okay!!!

Anonymous said...

Did you hear the rattle? I've never seen one but they are so scary. Glad you and the pups are ok. Two friends of mine from work also have pups like yours so I'm giving them your web site link. Where's D?