I sat out on our front porch this morning to drink my coffee.  The azaleas are in full bloom and the pansies have not yet been done in by the heat.  One of my antique roses has started to bloom as well.  We’ve had rain most of the day since that early moment of tranquility but as soon as the rain ended, Sherod and I came back out to sit on the glider for a late afternoon visit.

Sherod has just bought a weeder eater that I can handle so after a little while, he encouraged me to try it on the weeds in the bed in front of us.  As I was testing it, I noticed a small snake crawl past.  At first, I thought it was a small gray rat snake like the one that visited us a few days ago.  But as Sherod and I looked at it, we started wondering.  I went in and got our new snake stick; Sherod wanted to be the one to pick it up so he did, and then handed it to me.  Very quickly, we realized the snake had fangs and was trying to strike.  After some quick research, we are pretty sure it was a copperhead.  Not as poisonous as others, but still.  

We have our relocation plan in place for non-poisonous snakes but the poisonous ones will need to be transported much further from our property.  We have not talked through how to do that safely and don’t have a good “transportation container”.  So with some real regret, but also clarity, we agreed we would kill it and did so.  Afterwards, I picked it back up w the snake stick and took it to an open field away from the farm.  

Sherod and I had just been talking about how close to heaven this new life is for both of us.  There is not much that allows us to idealize or romanticize it though.  And that, in fact, is one reason we love it so much…

Update–seems it’s not a copperhead, but rather, a cottonmouth…