You will never guess what we found in our house! Yes, a snake. That has now been identified as a Sonoran Ground Snake. This is the picture from the Yahoo Image files. Last night I goggled "snakes of Arizona" and found someone who helps people ID their snakes. You know there are tons of snakes here and many of them are venomous.
Anyway, let me first tell you what happened.
We had been watching my friend Amy's little girl (see previous post of the Little Pink Haired Girl). She had been carrying Sam and Abby around since Friday night. So, on Saturday morning
I had her help me put the dogs to bed. She tucked them in and brought in every dog toy they
own. She left about an hour later. Late Saturday afternoon, I knew Sam was under my bed trying to get something. I figured it was a dog toy. We were getting ready to leave. Sam was trying to move his soft, dog bed. He was using his head trying to lift it. I figured there was a toy under the bed, so I picked it up for him. Not a toy, but a snake.
It really startled me, not the sort of thing you expect in your bedroom. I yelled for Miss Brunette not to come in the room. When, I told her why she jumped on the sofa in the
family room and was crying/screaming.
I told her to go get John (neighbor John, next door who may move because of our constant troubles). She did. When, she came back, I said "did you tell him it was pretty small". "No." In comes John with this hook.
I had stayed in the doorway watching where the stupid snake went. We caught him with my
dust bin and broom. On our way out, it got away and was headed under my stove. We
were able to find him so fast because of the dogs. They were all over this snake business.
We got him caught again and released him in my neighbor's cacti.
I later researched the type of snake it was to make sure it was not poisonous in case
these snakes travel in schools, like the fish. We don't know if he came in through an open door
(one was repaired Friday and off for about 3 hours), the dogs brought it in or it was dormant in the house for the winter. I don't like the thought of option three.
This morning John told me he wondered if it came from the attic. I had a trap door put in the ceiling of the garage also on Friday. He told me 20 years ago the people who lived in this
house raised and bred snakes. Nice. "Now you tell me John," was my answer. That sort of thing ought to be disclosed when you buy a house. Love Man, who naturally is away when all trauma dramas happen, said that would explain why no birds get in our attic. Great. My snake looked
exactly like this one in the photograph. It was about 12 - 14 inches long, salmon colored with an orange back (or dorsal as they say in the snake biz).
