Aaron 1, Snake 0

So, last week we reported the terrible snake bite incident involving Hildi and an unknown perpetrator. Well, on Thursday Cath went out to check the mail and prior to leaving the safety of the porch, she looked in the mulch right next to the walkway and front porch and saw it...a long brown slithery thing basking in the sun.

After a scream and bolt into the house, she told the kids to call me and tell me to come home now! I was able to get her on the phone and I heard "I found the snake". I promptly asked "did you kill it?" The response was, "no, I'm not going near that thing!" I then thought of Connor and figured he is bigger than me, he can do it. After explaining the perfect tool for the job (an edging tool that I bought when we lived in Utah 10 years ago, but exactly fitting for the task), I then listened with great excitement that the bad snake that bit our little "precious" would be paid back for the terrible act it committed just a week earlier.

As I listened, all I could hear is "do you see it?", "no", "oh, there it is", "aaaaaahhhhh, it's moving", "don't let it bite you", "aaaaaahhhhhh", "aaaaaahhhhhh", "we can't get it"...this went on for a while and I finally realized that this was my only chance to purge our home of this terrorizer, but I had to act quickly.

I bolted out of my office, phone in ear and told my assistant that I would be back in a while. On the way home, I knew it would take me 25 minutes to get there and I was hoping the snake did not go into hiding. The kids were keeping an eye on it so it would not get away. I was concerned because I could hear the voices in the background "I don't see it anymore", "where did it go".

Cath and Danika checked the internet to try and match up what type of snake it was. After looking at the non-venomous varieties with no match, Cath looked at the venomous list and there it was! It was clearly a Copperhead (yikes!).

I finally pulled up in the driveway and was proud to see my three boys on the front porch, all with some variety of long stick. A lot of show, but not much action.

I jumped out of the car and took in hand my tool of choice. I was poking around in the bushes because the boys could not see the snake. In less than 30 seconds, I found it in a bush curled up and not happy that I was poking around. My adrenaline quickly kicked in and the anger stage took over...here was a poisonous snake living right by my front porch, has already bitten my dog and terrorized my wife. This creature was about to be assisted, no thrust across the veil!

I took a swift strike at the snake and it moved quickly under the leaves. I could see the leaves moving rapidly, so I struck several times in the leaves exclaiming "mess with my dog and my wife and you are toast!" It was clear that I struck true as I saw parts of the snake on the ground and my tool. However, I could not see the rest of the snake. I realized that during my combination attack, the snake had realized that I was crazy and tried to get away. It headed for its den that it had made under the porch. I had the end of it trapped with my tool. I was thinking about how to get the snake out when I saw its head come out of the hole (big mistake). I quickly struck and that was it!

I asked for a pair of long BBQ tongs and pulled the dead snake from under the porch. As I held it there, my boys were cheering and I felt quite the protector of my family! Everyone was feeling pretty good until the snake's body moved involuntarily and they all screamed like girls (including the boys).

We got plenty of pictures of the event. The worst thing of all of this is that Cath made me throw away my BBQ tongs!

Aaron