After a week hosting a conference on spiritual direction, I surface. Just barely, though. The mind being saturated, I spent the day "winterizing" the yard. A task which included, alas, hacking down all the tomato vines. What is life without home-grown tomatoes, I ask you?
While moving all my gardening tools into the basement, I found a snake nesting in an overturned clay pot. Because of his coloring and the fact that he just froze when I discovered him, I feared he might be a juvenile copperhead (couldn't see his beady little eyes well enough to tell for sure). Hubby was in the midst of a major wiring project, so even though I was completely freaked out (I think that's the technical term), I decided to summon my inner pioneer woman and try to take him out. I will spare you the details, as I don't come off too well, but you PETA members out there can rest comfortable in the thought that somewhere near the foundation of my house, a snake is telling his family how he faced down the frenzied white woman and her shovel and lived to tell the tale.
After a little internet research, I'm reasonably sure it was a harmless brown snake anyway. They eat slugs and bugs. So maybe it wasn't the marigold border keeping slugs away from my lettuces all summer after all. And how do I thank the nice snakey for his service? Take several whacks at him.
Some people might have researched the matter first you say? If it had truly been a juvenile copperhead, I could have stumbled on a nest and it would have been foolhardy to try to beat just one? Yes, I see that now. Mentally exhausted. Not thinking straight. And there's also this.
God to the serpent in Genesis 3:15: "I will put enmity between you and the
woman."
