Snakes On a Plane... or in Our Yard!

While we were away in Vegas, we secured Momma Kimball and my Mom to trade off watching the kids for the four days that we were gone. The moms were awesome and took good care of our kiddos while we were away. There was just one little incident while we were away. Momma Kimball was watching the kids at our house on Friday and our neighbor came over to tell us(her) that we had about 100 snakes in our backyard and they were going into his backyard.

We have pest problems in our yard every year. We get a couple of snakes, we've had mice burrowing in the garden, last year we had a gopher, we have wasps in our shutter, and it really isn't a big deal. We get traps, we get poison, we get a nice big shovel and Matt takes care of the problem. But, last year, Matt cut a bunch of branches off our trees and cut up the wood and stacked it by our fence so that we would have firewood if we ever needed it (kind of an emergency preparedness thing). Unfortunately, piles of wood are apparently great places for snakes to live.

The snakes had obviously layed their eggs either in our wood pile or under our neighbors shed (which are just over the fence from each other) and the snakes all hatched while we were on our trip. Our neighbor went into his shed on Friday and the floor of his shed was covered in snakes. Oh yeah, I should add that these snakes are not poisonous, these are little gopher snakes that eat mice and keep the pests away. We usually let them live in our yard every year.

So, our neighbor freaked out, saw snakes going back and forth under the fence and decided that we were the cause of the snake problem. Maybe we were, I don't know. Or maybe, the snakes layed their eggs under his shed which is on a raised, wooden platform. Difficult to say since we were not there.

So, Momma Kimball, who is very afraid of snakes, started calling exterminators. One exterminator reported that to remove the snakes would cost around $1000. Something which Matt and I can very much not afford. So, she called a snake wrangler in Salt Lake that collects snakes for free, but he couldn't come until the next day.

So, Matt's brave sister Anne, decided to take things into her own hands (because our neighbor was still freaking out about the snakes) and she moved all of our wood pile to our green trash can so that the snakes would have no where to live.

Personally, I am not afraid of snakes. They really don't bother me if they aren't poisonous and aren't going to hurt the kids and I figure that they will keep the mice away. Spiders on the other hand, I am really afraid of spiders, but that has nothing to do with my story. So, I just wasn't understanding why everyone was freaking out about the snakes in our backyard. I figure, if you leave them alone, they will move on and go in search of food because our backyard certainly cannot feed 100 snakes (also I think the number of snakes was an exaggeration). But, since Momma Kimball is afraid of snakes and so (apparently) is our neighbor, the situation was handled immediately and we missed the whole thing.

The day after the great snaketastrophe, my mom (who was then at our house watching our kids) reported that the snake wrangler came and wrangled any remaining snakes that were about. When we came home on Sunday, the snakes were all gone. We looked in the backyard and they had all moved on (as we knew they would).  And thus, the great snake incident was done.

I'm just glad it wasn't a great spider incident. Spiders give me the hibijeebees. Thanks to the Moms and Anne for all that they did to take care of the snakes while we were away.