Snake!!!

This morning while Scout and I were outside, Mama saw something odd under our siding.

Snake!!!! Mama got all upset. She took the photo and emailed it to Daddy. Daddy was out of town. She said "What kind of snake is this?" No response from Daddy. She then emailed her best friend. She then decided to send it to the masses and put it on Facebook. She then called Daddy and said "Did you get the picture of the snake?" "It's under the siding, can it get in the house?" Now, last year when there was a black snake on the screened porch, she asked Daddy if it could get in the house and he said "if it wants to it can". Daddy took a lot of grief for that remark, so Mama didn't know if she should believe him when he said it would be very difficult because it would have to get through several layers. Mama saw this house being built with her own two eyes, so she knew all the layers, but she still felt uneasy. She described the snake to Daddy and told him she had seen it once in the zoo. Daddy laughed at her. Two friends were smart and looked up Missouri snakes on the Internet and found out it was a Red Milk Snake. Mama was trying to find it by describing it's colors and that was not bringing up the correct snake.

Here is the description that was found:
One of Missouri's most brilliantly colored snakes that is extremely rare to find. It is similar in pattern and color to the red milk snake, but instead has a red or orange color snout and a spotless, white belly. It is 14 to 20 inches (36-51 cm) long. This secretive snake spends much of its life underground, surfacing to feed mainly on eggs of other reptiles and occasionally rodents, lizards and small snakes. It is named for the red or crimson colored blotches along the back.


Mama felt better when she found out that it was not poisonous, but wondered why something extremely rare showing up in our yard had to be a snake. She checked on it several times. She even poked at it once to see if it was alive.


As soon as Daddy got home, Mama told him to come look at the snake. Daddy couldn't believe it had stayed there all day. Daddy got a storage bin and then took a long handle to try and get it to come out from under the siding. The snake decided to go further up the siding, so Daddy had to do a Steve Irwin move and he grabbed the tail of the snake and pulled it out.



They then put it in the car and Daddy sat in the backseat with it to be sure that it didn't escape. Mama was so scared that it was going to get out of the bin. She kept asking Daddy if he was paying attention to it. They came to the end of our road and released it. It slithered away happily.

Mama hates winter, but she will be glad when it's too cold for snakes.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Is Getting An Education In Snakes