snakes!

So this morning I woke up to my friend and neighbor Eryc calling to tell me that there was something in our yard Mikey and I might want to see.  Snakes hatching in our hard!!!  Having far more curiosity than Mikey, I jumped out of bed, brushed my teeth, and headed outside...only to find Eryc and our neighbor on the other side staring at a small hole in the ground.

We eventually discovered that what looked like a hatched snake egg was actually an eaten snake egg.  And there were four more healthy eggs in a small hole.  We had to decide whether to let the little baby snakes live or whether to kill them.  Our street has a creek/ditch along our back fences, and we have a lot of cotton mouths...very poisonous and very mean! So we decided it was wisest for Eryc to dispose of the remaining eggs.  I felt so bad.

THEN, after he'd dug them up and whatnot, Eryc found out that cotton mouths give LIVE BIRTH! So we likely killed poor little good snake babies.  There is always the possibility that they could have been dangerous, and with all of the young children on our street, we didn't want to risk it.  But still! I just hate that anything had to die.  At least now we can feel just a little bit safer! I'm not sure how I'd have felt walking out in the yard one morning only to find tiny snakes everywhere...even if they weren't poisonous!