There
are not many things that I am scared of, but a few weeks back while baling hay
I got attacked by a dog and that was a fear I had never felt before. It was a
terrifying completely-out-of-my-control situation that I never want to feel
again. The only other thing that I could imagine making me feel that way is a
snake. They give me the heeby-geebies on a grand scale.
Growing up as a child I had a reoccurring dream about a black snake
slithering up the laundry shoot from the basement into the bathroom and then
into my bedroom. I just hate snakes. Where I grew up we had a lot of
black snakes. We would find their skins in our hay mow and around the barnyard.
I never wanted to go up in the hay mow because I was afraid of the snakes. One
night my dad told me to throw some hay down for the ewes. I was being a wimp
and was whining about going up there because of snakes. My dad said, “I promise
there are no snakes up there.” I climbed up the ladder and began tossing down
the hay. It was hot and I was wearing shorts. I felt something cold on my
ankle. I looked down and, wouldn’t you know it, there was a huge black snake on
my leg. I screamed so loud and jumped so far I am lucky I did not jump right
out of the mow.
Earlier
this week, we were again making hay and while I was moving wagons, the kids
found the front half of a snake out in the field. I try not to let my fears
project onto the kids, but with snakes it is just hard for me to do. Campbell
was touching it and I was grossed out. I was thinking with relief that I was
glad that snake got chopped in half.
I
continued to haul wagons and began to unload a wagon down the road from the
hayfield. I was on the wagon tossing bales down to the guys. I was kind of
joking about how light a bale was as I held it in one hand longer than usual
before throwing it down. Little did I know that, hanging out of the bale when I
threw it down at my friend, dangled the back half of the snake. He thought I
knew it was in the bale and was not happy when I tossed it directly at him.
Had I known there was a snake in the bale, I would not have been on that wagon let alone holding that bale.
We quickly set that bale aside and finished unloading and stacking. It was
later determined by another much less snake-weary party that it was only half a
snake. What are the odds that out of acres and acres of hay we would end up
finding both ends of the snake? The bottom line is that I am just glad there is
one less snake on the farm.
