I'm pretty sure the fact that we've found only a handful of snakes since moving here has been attributed only to our lack of looking rather than the absence of snakes.
It's never a surprise when we find one, but that doesn't make it any less fun.
Today, while looking for potato and sow bugs to capture in their fish net, I advised Peter to flip over the door mat.
"Oh! Oh!" I found a snake!"
(Lucy found an almost-finished smock I'd made for her and wanted to wear it right away)
And he did: a small eastern ringneck snake. Peter and Lucy chased the snake around a bit, hoping to catch it. At some point, the snake so effectively played dead that I'd thought he'd been crushed under a rock. We caught him - not a difficult task at all, really - and took him to Samuel and Penelope's house to share. Then, under Samuel's guidance, Peter released the snake back to the woods.
(video link here)
We took the time outside to hang two new swings and to enjoy a little spring weather with our neighbors.
It seems appropriate enough to mention here, in the context of outdoor play and creepy-crawly animals, that Kevin's pretty sure Peter stepped in some animal entrails yesterday while running on our sidewalk. It was described as being "not poop, but definitely organic, probably intestines." Oh, and did I mention Peter wasn't wearing shoes? Thank goodness for that nightly bath.
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