Took the day off and went outside. We've been putting in a huge garden and they were predicting rain, so wanted to get the corn, beans, cukes, and taters in the ground before the storm. It was a beautiful day, breezy, not too hot, and I was working on planting beans while sitting on my sturdy chair. I reached down for a tool and saw something move...a SNAKE! Yikes.

We have a lot of snakes on the farm, for the most part they are harmless black snakes. But this one was red and gold banded, thin, long and heading under my chair. My biggest fear was that my Jack Russell Terrier who was already under my chair would see the snake and attack it. We do have poisonous Copperhead snakes, and I was not sure just what this one was. Grabbed the terrier by the collar and pulled him to where I could see him...but the snake had disappeared.

Seeing as I'm disabled and getting up and moving is a major production, I started hollering SNAKE! SNAKE! and my husband hollered back from the house that he was coming. Those 30 seconds were about four hours long as I looked frantically for the snake while hanging on to my little dog.

Finally DH arrived and checked carefully under my chair and poked the weed piles around me...no snake. Then we spotted it slowly making it's way across the freshly tilled corn patch. From the safe distance of 10 yards and with the snake field guide in hand, we were able to identify it as a non-poisonous Eastern Milk Snake. Finally, it slithered off into the tall grass.

I am not particularly afraid of snakes, but having one within six inches of my hands and feet is just a wee bit too close.

It's never a dull moment here on the farm, but I'm happy to have returned this evening to my comfy chair and computer!

Hmmmm...I wonder if I can make a snake that could visit a Sim's garden??