Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day doing yard work. Our beautiful yard comes with a lawn service, but not a gardener. So all of the shrub trimming and weed pulling has to get done by us or should I say "me". It's not a job I look forward to, but once I am out there and definitely after it is finished, I'll admit I find it somewhat rewarding and therapeutic.
I have the furthest thing from a green thumb and most of the house plants I have owned did not survive within my care unless they thrived with neglect or were made of plastic, so this is still a learning process for me. The plants around the pool in the back of the house are so taken over with weeds that I am not quite sure where to start. But since no one can see them but us(and our lawn guys), I focus most of my energy on the front and hope that someday I will wake up and they will have miraculously disappeared. (Let's call it "from the weed fairy".)
The last project for yesterday was to spray weed killer in the shrub area. I didn't want to do it while Miles was awake, so I waited until he went down for his nap. I spent the extra $$'s and bought the fancy jug with the pump spray after suffering the last time with the hand squeezed spray bottles. It was quite uneventful and I even managed to unproductively spray around the back bushes in hopes of defeating some of the jungle weeds. The bottle clearly stated the results were noticeable within 6 hours and sure enough there was some drunk, saggy looking vegetation in our front yard by sundown.
This afternoon I decided to tackle the pool deck mold(ahh! the Florida lifestyle) and after a few hours of getting sick from commercial strength chlorine, I called it quits. I came in, made lunch and then put Miles down for a nap. I decided to take a walk around the yard and see how successful all of the weed work had been. The front looked pretty good with only a few touch-ups needed here and there, and although the side yard needed more work, it was drastically better from the day before. As I got to the screen door to the pool, I noticed a black snake in the grass. I back peddled to the front and ran into the house proclaiming my yard work officially done until the weeds took over the yard again.
I found Chris hard at work in his office and quickly relayed my "giant" snake story. Of course he laughed it down, so I ran outside to see if the snake was still visible from the patio. Sitting right in front of the door was a long black garter snake, probably no thicker than a nickel. I yelled for Chris to come see the snake and as I yelled, it started to slither down toward the marsh about 5 feet away(we live on a conservation lot).
As Chris got to the screen door, it was only slightly visible as it disappeared into the muck. Just as he turned to walk back into the house dispelling my giant snake myth, we both heard and visually caught the end of a THUD. From the corner of my eye, I saw a HUGE snake fall from the ceiling.......INSIDE the screened-in patio. It was right out of a scary science fiction movie - just before the venomous cobras take over the planet. Chris screamed some sort of girly-octave profanity and ran in the house faster than I've seen him move in years. I froze solid, afraid I would be attacked at the slightest step, after being abandoned by my white knight (sorry honey when you write the blog you can make yourself more manly.......I still love you though).
The giant python slithered behind the grill and I finally got the courage to run into the house with what felt like every nerve in body being turned inside out on my skin. My biggest fear had been realized and it was now setting up camp on my patio. I devised a plan to wrangle it outside and freakishly slinked over to the door via the inside of the baby safety gate to prop it open. I next stood armed with the hose on full pressure ready to gun the snake out the door, but again my anxiety caused stage fright. My yellow-bellied husband came to redemption when he begrudgingly took over and shot what we finally saw was a skinny, tiny brown rat snake out the door. We both protest that when it fell from the sky that it was like 5 or 6 feet long and the width of a drain pipe, but it turned out to be about 2 feet long, about the width of a baby carrot......it was no less unwelcome.
I immediately raced out to Wal-mart and picked up a couple of door sweeps and quickly vanquished the inch or so snake space(assumably how it got in) that once existed under both of our patio doors. Although the incident scars will eventually fade, I now feel like I have to scan the ceilings and walls of the patio every time I let the dogs out. This is just one more reason to not have pets, or pools, or patios, or conservation lots etc. By the way the internet can say Harmless and Non-Venomous all it wants, but I don't care if it gets up and tap dances, when a snake falls from the sky, it is ALWAYS threatening.........I feel so violated!!!
Black Racer
Yellow Rat Snake
I have the furthest thing from a green thumb and most of the house plants I have owned did not survive within my care unless they thrived with neglect or were made of plastic, so this is still a learning process for me. The plants around the pool in the back of the house are so taken over with weeds that I am not quite sure where to start. But since no one can see them but us(and our lawn guys), I focus most of my energy on the front and hope that someday I will wake up and they will have miraculously disappeared. (Let's call it "from the weed fairy".)
The last project for yesterday was to spray weed killer in the shrub area. I didn't want to do it while Miles was awake, so I waited until he went down for his nap. I spent the extra $$'s and bought the fancy jug with the pump spray after suffering the last time with the hand squeezed spray bottles. It was quite uneventful and I even managed to unproductively spray around the back bushes in hopes of defeating some of the jungle weeds. The bottle clearly stated the results were noticeable within 6 hours and sure enough there was some drunk, saggy looking vegetation in our front yard by sundown.
This afternoon I decided to tackle the pool deck mold(ahh! the Florida lifestyle) and after a few hours of getting sick from commercial strength chlorine, I called it quits. I came in, made lunch and then put Miles down for a nap. I decided to take a walk around the yard and see how successful all of the weed work had been. The front looked pretty good with only a few touch-ups needed here and there, and although the side yard needed more work, it was drastically better from the day before. As I got to the screen door to the pool, I noticed a black snake in the grass. I back peddled to the front and ran into the house proclaiming my yard work officially done until the weeds took over the yard again.
I found Chris hard at work in his office and quickly relayed my "giant" snake story. Of course he laughed it down, so I ran outside to see if the snake was still visible from the patio. Sitting right in front of the door was a long black garter snake, probably no thicker than a nickel. I yelled for Chris to come see the snake and as I yelled, it started to slither down toward the marsh about 5 feet away(we live on a conservation lot).
As Chris got to the screen door, it was only slightly visible as it disappeared into the muck. Just as he turned to walk back into the house dispelling my giant snake myth, we both heard and visually caught the end of a THUD. From the corner of my eye, I saw a HUGE snake fall from the ceiling.......INSIDE the screened-in patio. It was right out of a scary science fiction movie - just before the venomous cobras take over the planet. Chris screamed some sort of girly-octave profanity and ran in the house faster than I've seen him move in years. I froze solid, afraid I would be attacked at the slightest step, after being abandoned by my white knight (sorry honey when you write the blog you can make yourself more manly.......I still love you though).
The giant python slithered behind the grill and I finally got the courage to run into the house with what felt like every nerve in body being turned inside out on my skin. My biggest fear had been realized and it was now setting up camp on my patio. I devised a plan to wrangle it outside and freakishly slinked over to the door via the inside of the baby safety gate to prop it open. I next stood armed with the hose on full pressure ready to gun the snake out the door, but again my anxiety caused stage fright. My yellow-bellied husband came to redemption when he begrudgingly took over and shot what we finally saw was a skinny, tiny brown rat snake out the door. We both protest that when it fell from the sky that it was like 5 or 6 feet long and the width of a drain pipe, but it turned out to be about 2 feet long, about the width of a baby carrot......it was no less unwelcome.
I immediately raced out to Wal-mart and picked up a couple of door sweeps and quickly vanquished the inch or so snake space(assumably how it got in) that once existed under both of our patio doors. Although the incident scars will eventually fade, I now feel like I have to scan the ceilings and walls of the patio every time I let the dogs out. This is just one more reason to not have pets, or pools, or patios, or conservation lots etc. By the way the internet can say Harmless and Non-Venomous all it wants, but I don't care if it gets up and tap dances, when a snake falls from the sky, it is ALWAYS threatening.........I feel so violated!!!
Black Racer
Yellow Rat Snake
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