Snake Raking

You know how everyone these days has their own reality TV show? It doesn't matter if it's about cakes, alligator wrestling, storage units, bugs, bounty hunters or pawn shops, everyone and their brother is on TV. Well if there had been a film crew wandering around in our neighborhood last night, they would have been able to film a one-show season of a new show that they could have called "Snake Raking".

There was a snake that made its way into the rose bush beside our back door. Being worried for the safety of their favorite little dog, my brother and dad decided to try and see if they could move it to a less prickly, less in our way location. If this was on TV, I think they would have played some dramatic music, and said something about how the safety of the family had been threatened by this creature. Ian and Daddy would have suited up in some ridiculous outfits that would probably include fringed leather vests, and everyone in our family would be sporting mullets. 


Armed with a shovel and a rake, my brother and father strode toward the rose bush to take on the snake. It took a little while to extract it because, in the words of my sister, "the snake kept lunging at them!" Are snakes even capable of lunging? My father said it took a while because "it was like trying to scoop water with a rake." If you say that last line with a hick accent, you can see how this would have made great television. My other sister suggested we stick the snake under the house since they eat mice. My dad reminded her that he stores stuff under the house and wasn't really interested in challenging the beast again. Just think of the sequel episode that could have been though! Revenge! Drama! An epic underground battle between man and serpent!




Eventually, they did manage to extract the snake from the rose bush, and half carried, half raked it off into the willows. If the cameras had been rolling, someone would have had to get bitten before the show could come to a happy ending in a nice tidy 30 minutes, but alas... we had no such drama.

My brother and dad: SNAKE RAKERS!

Do enjoy the following documentation of this epic encounter between man and nature. To add the most drama, please start the video before scrolling through the pictures. 


~ jasmine