This Mortal Coil

I began a post about Corny's first two days of his weight loss program, but I'll finish that tomorrow because...

Today we got dressed in our go-to-town clothes and went to the Ikea store in Sacramento.  What nudged us out the door was the fact that, once again, I had stupidly left a hose running and we had no water until the well had recharged.  Being home without any water on a hot August Sunday is miserable -- time to get out of Dodge. 

So, off we went.  Unfortunately, Ikea was a zoo.  Legions of screaming babies; extremely loud and awful piped in rock music blasting out everywhere; people swarming everywhere like ants.  After driving two hours to get there, we could hardly get out fast enough.  We stopped at a hardware store in Stockton on the way home to pick up some things we needed.  And then, as the sun was going down behind the hills, home. 

Bruce parked the car in the carport and I got out and went up the two steps to the house.  Then I heard the "Chh-chh-chh" of the sprinkler and was confused.  The water had been off when we left the house.  Had I, once again, left a hose on?  I stood on the step, holding my schoolbag and purse, listening to the sprinkler and trying to figure out where the water was on.  Then Bruce got out of the car.  The next few moments were a bit of blur.  Bruce yelled, "It's a snake!"  and I instantly executed the most elevated leap of my life, from that second step to a distant spot halfway across the driveway. 

The sound I'd been hearing was the whirring of a rattlesnake's tail, not the whirring of a sprinkler.  You'd think that after all the years of living here, I'd know the difference.  And said snake was coiled under the very step I'd just been standing on. 

I put the dogs in the kennel, out of harms way, while Bruce got together an action plan.  Then I bravely stood on a bench while Bruce pried up a board of the steps and grabbed the rattler with the snake tongs.  It was one of the largest ones I've ever seen -- and it was furious.  The snake tongs were wet with its venom as it repeatedly bit at it.  It gives neither of us any joy to have to kill any animal at Frogpond, but Bruce had no choice.  It simply was too large and dangerous. 

Still, it makes me sad.  The snake was magnificent.





This is so the crux of what life is like here.  At times it all seems so tamed and safe.  But then the elemental side bursts back to the forefront and it hits us again that things can be as wild at Frogpond Acres as in the African Savannah or some Brazilian jungle.