Snakey Casey

Yesterday, around 6ish in the evening, my husband urgently tapped on the back door, signaling for me to hurry out to the deck.

Now, my sense of urgency did not match his, because he often signals for me to come outside in order to show me things like frogs, lizards, deer, etc. Not that I don’t enjoy seeing those things, I just don’t usually need to be in a rush.

Last night, though, his urgency seemed more…urgent. I couldn’t get out there fast enough.

But when I got to the railing of the deck and followed his pointing finger, this is what I saw.

Well shoot, he was right. I needed to see this NOW.

We’ve lived in Alabama for 13 years now (I think) and we’ve never had a snake in our yard. Even since we moved here and live on the edge of the woods. We’ve seen some garden variety snakes around, no big deal. I’m not afraid of snakes.

Usually.

Due to our naiveté about snakes, we didn’t even consider the dangers of this next step:

After taking the picture, he came back to the deck and handed me my phone. We zoomed in and I told him to start googling. I immediately sent it to my good friend Judy, identifier of all things wild in Alabama.

While waiting for her reply, I sent the above picture to my family’s group chat. Hilarity ensued.

In the midst of that chat, Judy responded at almost the same time as Casey exclaimed:

“That’s a copperhead!”

Um. Uh. Sheeeeeiiiit.

Did I mention that sucker came out from under our deck? And we let it slither along its merry way under the fence and into the woods?

Obviously, had we realized what we were dealing with, we would have attempted to kill it. (Casey’s 410 shotgun is currently sitting by the back door at the ready, just in case).

Thankfully, Georgie and Wanda were sleeping inside and missed the entire situation. But now every time they go out, I scan the yard first.

Our neighbor told Casey today that’s the third sighting of a copperhead he’s heard about in two days in our neighborhood. Yikes!

So, tonight we are extra vigilant as we keep an eye out for freaking copperheads in our backyard. FUN STUFF. Hopefully, Snakey Casey can dispose of him if he turns up.