After talking about the snake incident concerning my dads grill, that reminded me of the instance we had last year at our own house.
Inside of our garage is a storage room, that contains the usual assortment of shelves stuffed to the gills with junk that lacks any type of organization. I personally hate going in there, but the freezer is also in there, so I find myself there anyway at least once a day. My husband had a bad habit (at the time) of leaving the garage door open when he left the house. Despite repeated attempts on my part begging him to please close the garage door, he always forgot. This incident "cured" him of that.
So, one month while he was working a weekend night, I went out to the freezer to forage for something dinnery. I had already told him about a new birds nest that I had spotted on one of the shelves earlier that month. At the time I was the only one parking in the garage, and every time I got out, momma bird would swoop and try to peck my eyes out for entering what she considered "her domain". This went on *every day*, several times a day. I would get a broom and shoo her out and then close the garage door. Lloyd would come home, open the garage door, leave it open and sleep all day. We played this little game for weeks. I asked him if he wouldn't mind getting the step ladder and removing the nest before she laid eggs. He said he would handle it. Finally, momma bird gave up and I didn't see her again. (woohoo).
So, one month while he was working a weekend night, I went out to the freezer to forage for something dinnery. I had already told him about a new birds nest that I had spotted on one of the shelves earlier that month. At the time I was the only one parking in the garage, and every time I got out, momma bird would swoop and try to peck my eyes out for entering what she considered "her domain". This went on *every day*, several times a day. I would get a broom and shoo her out and then close the garage door. Lloyd would come home, open the garage door, leave it open and sleep all day. We played this little game for weeks. I asked him if he wouldn't mind getting the step ladder and removing the nest before she laid eggs. He said he would handle it. Finally, momma bird gave up and I didn't see her again. (woohoo).
Well...guess what? When I went to the freezer that night, I saw the nest still there. AND...heard the unmistakable sound of baby birds cheeping. Crap. So, I got the step ladder, climbed up there and we had *very fresh* baby birds. New born baby birds really are not very cute.
They were both cheeping their little hearts out hoping that their momma would come and bring them some food. So...I opened the garage door in hopes that she would hear them. (although I had not seen her in weeks, and didn't hold out a lot of hope). Unfortunately, a storm came about and it thundered, and was lightning, and drowned out the poor little baby birds cries.
I called "he who was supposed to remove the nest before we became orphaned bird parents", and explained the situation. I knew that I was not going to be able to forage for insects in which to feed these birds, unless of course they didn't mind eating a bit of charmin with the insects that I did manage to squish with some toilet paper, or being served off a flyswatter. Those were the options available.
So, all night long, I worried about these little birds, and asked Lloyd that when he got home, to please please handle the situation. What I meant by that was, move the nest to a place outside of the storage room, in a nice perch of a tree in hopes that the birds would be adopted. What can I say...sometimes I am idealistic.
The next morning I had to go to Wal-hell, and left Cole at home with Lloyd. Upon my arrival back home, I immediately went to put some frozen items in the freezer and check on my little orphans, and that is when all hell broke loose. You may not know this about me...but I have snake radar. Snake-dar, if you will. It acts much like my Spider-dar, and I know when I am being watched. I get up on my stepladder, and all of the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flick of a tongue, identified its source, almost wet my pants, my eyes bugged out, I fell off the ladder, and ran out of the storage room...as fast as I could.
snake in my storage-room
I then spent a few minutes calming myself down in the garage, and considered my options. I decided the best option would be to ask Lloyd to put the items in the freezer and not tell him about the snake (it turned out not to be poisonous...but truthfully, I wasn't 100% sure of that at the time). I would also ask him if he had "handled" the baby bird situation. (muwahahaha)
So, off to the storage room he goes, not a care in the world and up the ladder he climbs. Cole and I followed a few feet behind him....to watch. Just then I heard, "OH HELL NO, DAYUM!" Paint cans were overturned, the ladder was toppled once more, his arms and legs were literally swimming through the air in an attempt to vacate the room.
That's when I said...
So, all night long, I worried about these little birds, and asked Lloyd that when he got home, to please please handle the situation. What I meant by that was, move the nest to a place outside of the storage room, in a nice perch of a tree in hopes that the birds would be adopted. What can I say...sometimes I am idealistic.
The next morning I had to go to Wal-hell, and left Cole at home with Lloyd. Upon my arrival back home, I immediately went to put some frozen items in the freezer and check on my little orphans, and that is when all hell broke loose. You may not know this about me...but I have snake radar. Snake-dar, if you will. It acts much like my Spider-dar, and I know when I am being watched. I get up on my stepladder, and all of the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flick of a tongue, identified its source, almost wet my pants, my eyes bugged out, I fell off the ladder, and ran out of the storage room...as fast as I could.
snake in my storage-room
I then spent a few minutes calming myself down in the garage, and considered my options. I decided the best option would be to ask Lloyd to put the items in the freezer and not tell him about the snake (it turned out not to be poisonous...but truthfully, I wasn't 100% sure of that at the time). I would also ask him if he had "handled" the baby bird situation. (muwahahaha)
So, off to the storage room he goes, not a care in the world and up the ladder he climbs. Cole and I followed a few feet behind him....to watch. Just then I heard, "OH HELL NO, DAYUM!" Paint cans were overturned, the ladder was toppled once more, his arms and legs were literally swimming through the air in an attempt to vacate the room.
That's when I said...
*I TOLD YOU SO*...
So, now he has to remove the snake, and he feels as though I set him up. There could be some truth in that. He goes and gets a Home Depot bucket, and the tongs he uses on the grill. In 4,000+ hours of animal planet watching, that isn't the usual method I have seen employed to catch a snake. I'm just sayin'.
We follow him back out there once more, because...now...it is "show time". I also brought the camera for documentation purposes. So, there I am, literally inches behind him, clicking away, not getting good shots at all. He was doing some deep breathing excercises to psyche himself up, when he turned around and noticed both me and Cole literally crowding him closer to the snake. He snapped the tongs at us and made us wait outside. (hmmph)
We still didn't know for sure whether this snake was poisonous or not, but even being bitten by a non-poisonous snake still kinda sucks. This I do know.
So, I watch him grab the snake with the tongs, and attempt to throw it in the Home Depot bucket, while yelling out like he was preparing for tribal wafare. ayeyiyiyiyiyi.
I really was nearly peeing my pants now because the snake was having none of that. It had NO problem crawling up the 6ft or so to get at the baby birds, it was completely unphased by this shallow orange bucket. He is running holding the bucket handle with one hand, and trying to keep the snake from slithering out with the barbecue tongs in his other hand, before he finally just threw everything down on the driveway. Again, he is trying to dispose of a potentially vicious creature wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. No shoes, no shirt, no socks, not even flip flops. So, when the snake popped out of the bucket and tried to bite his feet, he had to do the Mexican Hat dance to get away. Much much more laughter.
He makes us back further away and he gets a hoe and kills the snake. Cole, having watched the entire thing says, "that was cool Daddy...do it again". Turns out it was a good snake to have, and probably...he should have just let it go in the neighbors yard. ;)
Anyway, he goes back into the storage room to handle the ROOT of this problem, the I told you so part. He asks me what I wanted him to do with the nearly dead baby bird in the nest. Um...what do you mean bird? There are two baby birdS in the nest. He said noooo...just one. (awwww)...
He shows me the one remaining, barely able to even cry out baby bird. Of course Cole tries to grab it and "love" on it. Looking closer at the snake, we saw the unmistakable bulge in the center of its' body (awwww....Part II). I don't know what he did with the remaining baby bird, I didn't have the heart to ask after all that.
HOWEVER, he does close the garage door with regularity now. Sometimes we just have learn lessons the hard way, I guess.
So, now he has to remove the snake, and he feels as though I set him up. There could be some truth in that. He goes and gets a Home Depot bucket, and the tongs he uses on the grill. In 4,000+ hours of animal planet watching, that isn't the usual method I have seen employed to catch a snake. I'm just sayin'.
We follow him back out there once more, because...now...it is "show time". I also brought the camera for documentation purposes. So, there I am, literally inches behind him, clicking away, not getting good shots at all. He was doing some deep breathing excercises to psyche himself up, when he turned around and noticed both me and Cole literally crowding him closer to the snake. He snapped the tongs at us and made us wait outside. (hmmph)
We still didn't know for sure whether this snake was poisonous or not, but even being bitten by a non-poisonous snake still kinda sucks. This I do know.
So, I watch him grab the snake with the tongs, and attempt to throw it in the Home Depot bucket, while yelling out like he was preparing for tribal wafare. ayeyiyiyiyiyi.
I really was nearly peeing my pants now because the snake was having none of that. It had NO problem crawling up the 6ft or so to get at the baby birds, it was completely unphased by this shallow orange bucket. He is running holding the bucket handle with one hand, and trying to keep the snake from slithering out with the barbecue tongs in his other hand, before he finally just threw everything down on the driveway. Again, he is trying to dispose of a potentially vicious creature wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. No shoes, no shirt, no socks, not even flip flops. So, when the snake popped out of the bucket and tried to bite his feet, he had to do the Mexican Hat dance to get away. Much much more laughter.
He makes us back further away and he gets a hoe and kills the snake. Cole, having watched the entire thing says, "that was cool Daddy...do it again". Turns out it was a good snake to have, and probably...he should have just let it go in the neighbors yard. ;)
Anyway, he goes back into the storage room to handle the ROOT of this problem, the I told you so part. He asks me what I wanted him to do with the nearly dead baby bird in the nest. Um...what do you mean bird? There are two baby birdS in the nest. He said noooo...just one. (awwww)...
He shows me the one remaining, barely able to even cry out baby bird. Of course Cole tries to grab it and "love" on it. Looking closer at the snake, we saw the unmistakable bulge in the center of its' body (awwww....Part II). I don't know what he did with the remaining baby bird, I didn't have the heart to ask after all that.
HOWEVER, he does close the garage door with regularity now. Sometimes we just have learn lessons the hard way, I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment