Memory Monday: Encounters With Wildlife!

I'm going to make fun of myself just a little today.   Some of you know about my fear of snakes.  Some of you may not.  I'm really afraid of snakes.  Irrationally afraid of snakes.  It is so bad, my heart starts beating rapidly when I have to go out into my yard between the months of March to November.  Here are a few funny stories (at least funny to you, not so much to me) about my escapades with snakes.

My first encounter with snakes was when I was about 5 years old and my Dad pulled one out of our ditch and held it on a stick.  I didn't like it.  Pretty sure there were tears involved.

Later on, I remember running back into church during choir practice insisting I had almost stepped on a snake with pink and purple diamonds outside.  I'm sure I saw a snake, but I question the coloring I thought I saw...

In high school, I took a Zoology course.  We had to do a three week section on snakes.  It was horrible.  I made it through that section and can still identify almost all the snakes in Missouri.  The bad part of the class was bug hunting.  We had to go outside and make a bug collection.  No biggie, right?  Except for the fact my high school was in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of woods infested with snakes.  I had decided to stay on the edges of the sidewalk and just collect bugs that came to me.  (I didn't have a stellar bug collection...)  The boys in my class decided it would be really funny cornering me in the science room waving a snake in my face.  I didn't think it was at all funny!

When Jeff and I first started dating, he took me to a local lake and we walked up the side of the spillway.  Once we got to the top, he makes this statement.  "Wow! I'm surprised we haven't seen any rattlers!"  He is very lucky he didn't have to carry me down the spillway.

We have a jet ski and I'm pretty sure that people get a good laugh at me when I fall off the jet ski.  I fall off it pretty often because I am a bad driver.  You would be shocked at how fast I can get back on that jet ski.  I'm not taking any chances staying in that water too long with the snakes!

Jeff and I went to Kentucky with my family and we stayed at a National Park.  There were lots of hiking trails.  Jeff and I took out hiking on a 6 mile trail one evening.  About one mile in, there was a big ole black snake slithering across the trail.  I went into hysterics and jumped and cried the entire mile back to our cabin.  I find that jumping allows my feet less of a chance to step on a snake.  When we got back, my family wondered how we had made it back so fast.  My response was "We had an encounter with the wildlife."  Let them assume it was a lion or bear.  Jeff ratted me out.

Most recently, Logan nearly stepped on a baby snake on our sidewalk and I grabbed him (Logan.  Not the snake!) and we stood on the porch shouting "Bad Snake" while Jeff killed the snake.  I'm pretty sure I'm scarring Logan for life.  He now always refers to snakes as "Bad Snakes".  I'm pretty ok with that.  I don't want Logan coming home with a snake EVER!

Just the other day, this is what I woke up to.

A snake on my purse!!!!

I didn't think it was funny.  I'm pretty sure this was Logan's doing.