Latter Days

This is my last full day in Texas. Tomorrow morning early I will hit the road and drive to Perryville, MO. I will make it back to Wisconsin Dells sometime Sunday afternoon.

Today the sprinkler men came and finished installing the new system. Mama and I went to visit the cemetery, particularly Tacky's grave. Then we went by a nursery so she could get some hanging baskets for the shepherd's hook thing in the front yard, but the man didn't have anything she wanted.

All in all it was a pretty quiet day until around 7:00.

Mama called me to see a large snake crawling out of the liriope. A mockingbird was staring at it like she wanted it for a week's worth of meals, but finally flew off. The snake then went into the garage. Mama went to get Daddy and while he was loading a pistol, we tried to keep an eye on the snake. It crawled under the freezer and we were unable to find it after that. We rattled rake handles under the freezer and even tried the leaf blower to spook it out from behind the fertilizer stacked in the corner, where we think it wound up. Finally we gave up and left the garage door up, hoping it will find its way out.

I am reasonably sure it was not poisonous -- no rattles, not a coral snake or a copperhead by its coloring. Probably just a rat snake or some such, although with a creek in the back yard, I suppose it might have been a cottonmouth. Never got a good look at it's front end.

I just hope it doesn't curl up in the shoes I had to leave out in the garage after getting them muddy in the yard from all the rain and the digging.