Wife says we gotta move or burn the house down

[DrScaryGuy]

My wife went to let the dog in from his run, but found he was getting interested in a ropey looking thing over by the fence. See, I braid up a rope with a loop for a handle we can play tug-of-war with and leave it over on the other fence for him to play with on his own, so i guess this is probably all my fault.

I'm sitting on the toilet and i hear my wife start screaming outside, yelling at the dog to stay away, get inside, etc. OMG WE HAVE TO MOVE. IT'S HUGE. I NEED TO GET CLOSE TO TAKE A PICTURE (yes, this all makes sense to her) and i'm yelling back "just stay away from it. you got the dog away. leave it alone"
I'm already trying to get up off the pot when this picture comes through from her phone


sigh. looks like just another black racer.

So I go out there to get a better look and to send it on it's snakey way (mind you, i had the mouse trap behind my gun safe catch a little furry destruction monster just the other day, so I want all the racers around i can get).



Yup, it may be a nope rope, but it's no danger noodle. Probably a little over 3 ft long, half in and out of the fence, just looking at me like "would you happen to know where i might get a meal?"

It looks like it's been healthy before, but now is a bit lethargic, hungry, and trying to gather its wits in the sun. "hey, why are you getting so close?"

Wife is looking down on us from a window yelling about how i'm going to get bit. I'm thinking this is the same racer i've seen a couple times, (at the front of the house in the bushes where some small birds like to hang out, hiding under an air compressor, periscoping his head up out of the tall grass to see if it's safe to cross into the short grass).

Anyway, the snake was tired of me, and I was supposed to be "getting rid" of it... so i stood by it's tail and tapped the fence a couple times.
WOOOOSH
snake was gone, right past the door where the dog goes in and out (assorted swear words raining down from my wife). I walk back to the door and my wife is busy locking me out because everybody knows all snakes can reach up 3 feet to turn a knob...
I tried telling her not to worry, because it kept going over to the front of the house.
This was a bad move on my part, she's about to head out with the dog and is gonna have to walk that way.
So then i had to go around to the front of the house and verify there are no snakes waiting to bite their delicate little ankles.
I said that either it's gone gone or hiding in the bushes and won't hurt nobody
Well that was another bad move on my part, because i didn't think about how the dog likes to sniff the bushes. but i did hear about it as soon as I said that.
I have been warned that if the snake gets in the house, she's unleashing all the lead she can.

In other news, last weekend i drained a little decorative frog pond and pulled the shell out of the ground for some light scrubbing and spotted this little fella dug in almost a foot deep - i'm surprised how fat he was given that he's probably been hiding there since fall. I also have no idea what he was thinking, crossing 50 yards of short dry grass in the hopes of finding a damp spot, but fortune favors the bold.

I held him captive in a flower pot until the cleaning was done, then guided him toward a new little spot where he could settle in and wait for a friend to come along.
Of course, this is the same spot where we spotted the large red belly water snake hiding last year, right where the racers travel past... so it's not the safest area for him to be in. I keep meaning to put some rocks in there to give amphibs better living accommodations and help with the intrusion of grass and such.

Oh, and my wife was not happy about the idea of having a salamander around either. I mentioned it to my cousin, an engineering and nature nerd, in front of my wife and all he said was how lucky we are to be living in such an unpolluted place that we have salamanders taking up residence in our decorations.

So yeah, this house is obviously unacceptable and drastic measures must be taken as soon as possible

 

[Chuckman]

A few months ago we found a rat snake in our kitchen. My wife said she the same thing.

 

[mostly22lately]

When I was a kid growing up in the NYC exurbs, I saw the ads in Boy's Life magazine for chameleons.

I sure wanted one, they were really cool. But we were poor and I didn't even ask the folks.

I now live in a house where the chameleons live in my own yard, for free, and they change their color to match the house trim.
I'll never forget or take for granted how lucky I am.

 

[DrScaryGuy]

When I was a kid growing up in the NYC exurbs, I saw the ads in Boy's Life magazine for chameleons.

I sure wanted one, they were really cool. But we were poor and I didn't even ask the folks.

I now live in a house where the chameleons live in my own yard, for free, and they change their color to match the house trim.
I'll never forget or take for granted how lucky I am.

It's a pretty nice place to be.
yesterday I watched an anole march across the wooden fence around our above ground pool, doing his red throat dance. dog chases skinks and nudges toads around. we leave lights on next to windows to draw gnats/moths so we can watch tree frogs climb and eat. we swerve to miss turtles in the road but try not to think about all the frogs and toads warming up on the road asphalt during evening rains. And that's just the amphibians. I am considering night vision or thermal just to keep looking around at night to see what i see. I know we have possums, racoons, bobcats, deer, coyotes, turkeys, the odd bear, and I scared and nearly hit one gigantic and very panicked owl driving pre-dawn the other morning.
my suburbs of detroit were probably a bit like where you were from. if you wanted to see something interesting, you had to work real hard to find it or import it. the odd garter snake and toad were rare exceptions in my world. grandma lived on the edge of town and i'd always go walk her yard looking for critters.