Steve has been getting lots of practice with his snake stick…

Our neighbor called tonight to tell us about a rattlesnake he found in his driveway.

By the time I got outside with the camera, the snake was in the fancy orange snake bucket.

I’m so proud of him.

In that weird Tucson-wife sort of way.

Yes, that is my living room.

And yes, the rattlesnake is still in the bucket.

I obviously haven’t processed this whole situation yet.

Ok – A few words…  It’s not a rattlesnake. It’s a bull snake -They eat rattlesnakes. Don’t you feel better now?

My favorite is the first picture of the fireman holding Jack back because he’s dying to get close. I bet Uncle Noah is proud :-)

 

 

 

You guess the caption…

Guess what we found tonight?

No guesses? Come on. I’ll give you a hint…  let’s take a stroll down memory lane:

Remember this guy? A baby rattlesnake. Right on our back patio.

What about this nasty little thing? Eeww.

Michael’s friend spotted this at the bottom of our pool a couple of weeks ago.

Can you imagine opening your eyes underwater and seeing this?

Oh yeah – in case you didn’t know – it’s a bark scorpion.

One of the most poisonous kinds.

And one of the most popular out here in the desert southwest.

This baby rattlesnake? Totally different than the earlier baby rattlesnake.

Same bucket, though…  Slim pickins on the rattlesnake buckets out here.

Steve and Jack caught this cute little lizard on the back wall.

I can handle lizards. Snakes and spiders? Not so much.

Is this a millipede? Centipede? Does it matter to me? Nope. Yuck.

Get it away from my house.

This? It’s a wolf spider. How do I know that?

I found it in my pool and had to e-mail multiple pictures of it to the “spider lady” at the Desert Museum for identification (because I am kind of a geek like that. I like to know what’s in my yard).

Then she checked with several colleagues and got back to me about it.  Double yuck.

This thing? HUGE. With big, fat rattlers on it.

My neighbor almost stepped on it last week.

The fire department actually came out with their bigger, fancier rattlesnake bucket

and took it back to its happy place.

So, any guesses yet?

A coyote?

A gila monster?

Nope.

Just a king snake.  A little baby king snake.

The kids were so excited to see it and pet it.

After a few minutes of oogling, you know what they asked, right?

“Can we keep it?”

And after thinking about all the gross stuff we could have found,

Dad and I said “yes… just for one night.”

Then Jack asked, “Can we go get him some chicken to eat?”

If you haven’t yet heard, we have a small pack rat problem.  I guess they are common out here. Steve has been putting little poison packets out at night and we have been asking Michael to pick up the dog poop a little more frequently…  but we still have them.  Good news, though! Yesterday, Steve found a HUGE dead one out in the backyard!  I almost took a picture, but was trying to make dinner and didn’t really want to get that close to it.  Today, though…  I had to take a picture of what I found today.