{"id":2320,"date":"2015-07-25T15:08:43","date_gmt":"2015-07-25T22:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5710.temp.domains\/~pippinst\/blog\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2015-07-25T15:08:43","modified_gmt":"2015-07-25T22:08:43","slug":"snakesitting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/25\/snakesitting\/","title":{"rendered":"Snakesitting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_6120\"<\/a>I know, such the blurry photo, but it was early morning and I had not yet had my tea. \u00a0Not much light and shaky hands. \u00a0And come on. \u00a0There was a snake in my house.<\/p>\n

I believe the snake carrier\u00a0was that fuzzy observer at the top, but it’s possible that she is just looking on in wonder at something her sister did. \u00a0Lucy is a fiercesome hunter. \u00a0Scouty has a niche of bothering lizards but not much luck getting hold of anything else.<\/p>\n

So here’s the thing. \u00a0Last summer the coyotes had a den a few houses over and just a teensy bit up the hill. \u00a0Every time an ambulance or a train went past they would all start yipping and calling. \u00a0Not a good situation to send much loved cats out into. \u00a0Typically the cats stay in most of the year and then get freedom in the summer with the door left open from morning to dusk so that they can just come and go. \u00a0I’ve always crossed my fingers because I do live up against a wild mountain forest, but their delight at the freedom makes me keep doing it. \u00a0But not last year, with the coyotes such a close and in-your-face presence.<\/p>\n

This spring I spotted coyotes a few times, sometimes in daylight and sometimes on the street right in front of my house. \u00a0So sorry cats, too risky.<\/p>\n

We are having such a hot summer and every time I come home with an armload of bags\u00a0the cats are waiting and burst out the front door before I can stop them. \u00a0They’re so wanting to feel grass under their feet and get out of a steamy house. \u00a0This escape is followed by copious rolling on the doorstep (them) and muttered curses and begging to come in (me).<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6066\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week I was out in my jungle of a backyard attacking blackberries that had grown so close they were almost knocking on my back door. \u00a0I hadn’t seen or heard any sign of coyotes for so long that when the cats burst out I left them out a few hours to wander and enjoy. \u00a0It was all good for a few days until I heard the coyotes again, a huge number of voices so I guess their babies are big enough to join in now? \u00a0The cats were again relegated\u00a0to pushing their noses up against the windows from inside and glaring at me.<\/p>\n

So back to snake. \u00a0The above cat info becomes more pertinent when I tell you that on the morning I saw this guy waiting to say good morning to me the cats hadn’t been out the day before. \u00a0And possibly not the day before that either. \u00a0It appeared that snake had already been bunking at my house at least a couple of nights! As I stood there counting days on my fingers and thinking this over it was not a nice thing to be thinking about.<\/p>\n

I looked at snake and tried to figure out how we was doing, and if he was actually alive. \u00a0Surely he’d be all curled up if he wasn’t, or the cats would be dragging him around in celebration of their mightiness. \u00a0This was all a little too much to be thinking about first thing in the morning with bare feet and no tea in my belly. \u00a0I know this sounds \u00a0like a bad decision but I\u00a0left to go make tea. \u00a0Sorry. \u00a0I just need it to think.<\/p>\n

So it turns out leaving to get my tea was a bad decision. \u00a0But you knew that. \u00a0I left my tea steeping and came back to find snake gone. \u00a0No sign.<\/p>\n

So. \u00a0Apparently alive then.<\/p>\n

I’m no rookie at wildlife coming to visit my forest-surrounded house so this was off-putting but not a dealbreaker. \u00a0I assumed he had slithered under the piano and went back to get that tea. \u00a0But when I came back a bit later with a flashlight there was no snake under the piano. \u00a0No snake under the couch. Or the chair. Damn.<\/p>\n

I had run out of places to look so I left to get some work done and hoped that the cats would point me to him later. \u00a0They’re not very good hunters once they’ve brought\u00a0things in, but they are pretty good pointers. \u00a0They lie and stare at where the beastie is hiding with their best blas\u00e9 lion faces on. \u00a0You would swear\u00a0that if only they could get at that thing they’d make short of work of it. \u00a0They’ve got this. \u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n

In past anytime\u00a0there was a beastie loose I could leave the door open and hope it would find its way out, and this seemed to work out. But now I needed a snake out and cats in.<\/p>\n

So the day passed with absolutely no sign of snake. \u00a0I named him Rosco and hoped that at least he was eating spiders. \u00a0I started to wonder if maybe a house snake might be a good thing for a bit. \u00a0Should I put water out?<\/p>\n

These are dangerous thoughts.<\/p>\n

No sign the next day. \u00a0Ugh. \u00a0Rosco, oh Rosco. \u00a0Wherefore art thou, Rosco?<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6123\"<\/a>The next day he turned up. Mid morning. \u00a0Lots of house activity. \u00a0I ran upstairs for something and when I ran back down there he was just hanging out in the living room. \u00a0Well hey. \u00a0How doing?<\/p>\n

I am a little squeamish picking up snakes (I blame the brothers for this) so was much relieved when Rosco calmly glided (Wait! \u00a0Did he glid?) into a cardboard box as if we had worked out the plan together.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6127\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well yes he did pee. \u00a0But that’s what they do. \u00a0Probably another reason I don’t like picking them up.<\/p>\n

His tongue was amazing. \u00a0But quick. \u00a0This was the best I could do photowise.<\/p>\n

He looked better than when I’d seen him the first day and when I took him outside and held the box down he flew out and under the porch in a flash, looking none the worse for wear and hopefully pumped up on spider and bug juice.<\/p>\n

I’d have him back.<\/p>\n

Is that wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, such the blurry photo, but it was early morning and I had not yet had my tea. \u00a0Not much light and shaky hands. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88890,"featured_media":2314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,23,90],"class_list":["post-2320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-critters","tag-just-having-fun","tag-pippin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pippinstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}