Yesterday's Garden Adventure

Yesterday was a school holiday, much needed despite only having 26 more school days. This time of year is always hard because I feel the pull of the sun and the soil, spending all day inside is true torture. This is all the harder because I know it is the last Spring that I will be forced to spend all my daylight hours in a dungeon cell as all public schools are (why don't schools have windows??).So, I spent the day pulling weeds, digging up transplants, shoring up a wash-out from recent rains, optimistically starting seeds for plants that we plan to put in a section of the garden that isn't even tilled yet.

When I ran out of puttering I tackled the real chore at hand, hilling the potatoes. I was making grand progress, doing a great job, pulling weeds, hilling, then re-mulching. More than halfway, proud of myself, maybe gloating a little and then he appeared...I blinked and he appeared, a rather large snake. I was so proud of myself; no shrieking, no jumping, no running away. I remained calm and rattled my rake in his direction saying something like "Shoo, get out of here" and off he slithered.

Back to work and I complete another row, turn and there he is coming through the rows. Again, remarkable calm since my one truly irrational fear is of snakes. I just rattled the rake in his direction and off he went into the rockpile. Nice, a perfect hideout for a snake, maybe he will stay there. Of course, I'm also thinking that I should get those rocks unpiled and put to use so they can't be a snake hideout, but I'm relieved all the same. I keep working, I'm tired and it is taking forever, but I'm almost done.

I come to the edge of the garden where we are planning to expand it, to kill the grass before we till we have laid out a large sheet of plywood to smother the grass. I decide I better flip it over to better get at the edge of the row and there he is again, under the wood and this time I shriek and run and curse his snakey ways. From a little distance, I can see him raise up and smell the air with his tongue, creepy.Up the stairs and straight to the Internet, because I realize that I'm not familiar with a snake that has a yellow belly and I want to look it up. Turns out he is a Eastern Yellow Bellied Racer, an adult and thankfully, non-venomous. I cool down after the shrieking and running and go back out, no snake. Cool, I'll just finish this job and be done for the day.

Not five minutes later there he is again, coming through the rows and I'm cursing him and yelling and yes, crying. I head upstairs, come straight to the Internet and go to Target.com and buy myself some knee-high rainboots and I felt immediate relief. It isn't the snake that scares me, but the thought of him slithering over my bare feet. Ai Yi Yi...I shudder to think of it.

So, my rainboots are on the way, they should arrive in 3-5 days and then I will be safe from snakes in the garden. I left the job unfinished last night which didn't sit too well with me. My OCD doesn't like unfinished jobs that can't be marked off the list.This morning it was 55 degrees when I got up and I realized that I was smarter than that snake. I could handle 55, he probably couldn't, so I went out and finished the hilling of the potatoes, buried a dead mole that one of the dogs had unearthed and NOW I am done with that job.