Neither Hubby nor I care for snakes.  Last year Sampson, Delilah and I came across a small garter snake on one of our walks.  I screamed, “Oh Oh” then “Leave it” while every hair on my body stood on end for at least five minutes.

There it happened again just thinking about it.

So when the Hubby showed me the photo of the snake in the wood pile, well you know my reaction.  I said it had to go and he said it ate spiders.  That’s a big payoff for me folks.  So now we have this snake in our wood pile.  The wood pile is off the deck so it’s a safe bet that Nagini (as I’ve named the snake) and I can live separate lives. Which is exactly how I want it.

And yes, as some of you pointed out Nagini is larger than most garter snakes I’ve seen and yes we know he eats more than spiders.  (For the sake of this article I will refer to Nagini as he.  More for my piece of mind then anything else, because the thought of a female making more snakes in my wood pile is too much for my little mind to comprehend.  Although I do love the idea of a female in a ‘wood’ pile, if you get my point. 😉 )  In fact, I’m betting Nagini has been helpful in cutting down on our mouse population.  No complaints on that front either.  Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the neighbor’s cat recently though…

For reference we have a large back yard and right now it looks like a jungle, so I’m fairly certain Nagini has been eating very well.

Nagini’s feeding ground when he’s not in the wood pile.

Hubby seems to be getting used to Nagini, in fact I took a picture of him outside working in close proximity to Nagini just the other day.

Brave or crazy? You be the judge.

I was safely up on the deck taking pictures while Hubby was inches away from the snake.

After one of our bug infested walks I said to Hubby, “I was thinking of trying to clicker train Nagini, then I could put a leash on him and he could walk with us and eat all the bugs.”

Hubby responded with “You could wear him around your neck and he’d snap, snap, snap” and he made a motion of the snake moving from one side of my head to the other.

Let me think about that for a sec…”Um No.” Come on!  It’s a freaking snake!

On Thursday the guy came to spray our yard for ticks and apparently Nagini does not care for the smell.  He vacated his spot on the wood pile.

We thought, he’ll come back.

So Friday I went out to check after I got home.  Safely from my spot on the deck I peered over at the wood pile, but I couldn’t see Nagini.  I leaned over a bit and thought, that might be him.

And then I had a very scary thought.  I thought, maybe I can go down there and lift the tarp with a stick and see if the snake is there.

I know right?  WTF was I thinking?

I walk down from the deck and I could feel the hair on my arms standing up just a little at the thought of my boldness.  As I walked past the rack of already cut and stacked wood I saw something black out of the corner of my eye.  I screamed and jumped before I realized it was just the top of the rack.  It was at this point that I realized two things.

1) Nagini could not be seen on the wood pile

2) I wasn’t going to lift the tarp

I went back inside to wait for Hubby.

When he came home we both went outside and he said, “He’s not there, he’d be right there on that piece of wood.”

“Well maybe he moved somewhere else” I sighed.

Hubby lifted the tarp and moved along the wood pile.   “No he’s here.”

“Where?”

“Right here.”

“I can’t see him.”  Of course I couldn’t see him, he was on the far side of the wood pile at least 25 feet away and I was on the deck.

Hubby lifted the tarp a little higher and I leaned over the deck a little more and there, I saw him!

Hubby said, “I think he’s sleeping.” Then, “He’s not moving.”

And then Hubby reached out and touched the snake!!

“Oh my god!  Oh my god!  You touched it. ” I squealed, running for the house rubbing my arms to get the hair to lay flat. Nagini slithered further into the wood pile.

A few minutes later Hubby came inside, I was still beside myself.  “You touched it, you touched a SNAKE!”

Hubby said, “I have to use the bathroom.”

At which point I babbled something like, “Make sure to wash the snake off your hands before you touch your snake with your hands.”  Or something like that.

And then Hubby turned, looked right at me and licked his finger.

I lost my shit.

After my hysterical screams of “Oh my god, you’re disgusting, you licked a snake”  yadda yadda yadda Hubby said, I touched it with this finger (he held up his pointer) and I licked this finger and he flipped me the bird.

Yes, Nagini has become a source of amusement around our house.  Where do you find your humor in your daily life?