A very amazing thing happened yesterday at our house. Ryan, Sara and the kids were over, and we were all outside. Elijah asked Grandpa John if he would give him a ride on the tractor. We were all in the barn when John and Elijah got on the tractor, and John started it up. The tractor started to make a horrible banging sound! John quickly turned off the engine, and we all looked at each other. He tried it again only to have the horrible banging start again. It sounded like a piece had broken off in the motor and was banging against the casing. John took off the one side of the casing, and there was a dead mouse stuck on some cable. Although this was pretty exciting for the boys, it was not the cause of the noise. John then took off the casing on the other side of the tractor and looked in. Pretty soon he said, “What’s that?” He stuck his hand in and felt something cold and clammy. He looked in again, and said, “It’s a snake!”. We could not believe it, so we each took our turn looking in. Sure enough, you could see the head of the snake as if it were posed just looking out with its mouth open. It was obviously dead, but it was still pretty creepy looking to me. Elijah and Josiah thought it was pretty cool though. John got some tools to try to get this snake out. We were all a little worried that the snake may have damaged the fan or broken something. John grabbed the snake by the tail, and he was able to pull it out in one piece. It was about 4 feet long and pretty chopped up. It was coiled around the fan. John threw it in the woods, and he started the tractor up. It ran fine, so off John and Elijah went for a ride! I don’t know what it is about these snakes, but they keep turning up in the most inconvenient places. Life in the country is . . . .
October 6, 2008