Snake in the grass

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.