Genesis 3:15

When I got home from the book fair today, I found this:

A bucket turned upside down with a paver on top only means one thing at our house -- someone found an animal and it's still alive and it's under that bucket because a squealing female only had that much presence of mind. The bucket then sits there until a man comes home and deals with whatever is under the bucket, whether it be a fruit rat, an abnormally large cockroach, or one of these:

And now we need to rewind to yesterday evening when Grandma and I had to explain to Casey about putting animals "out of their misery" and how it is cruel to allow an animal to suffer. We got started on the subject because Grandma had watched an old episode of the Crocodile Hunter and the Croc Hunter had found a shark on the bottom of the ocean with its tail and fins cut off, but left to drown. Grandma and I started talking about how cruel it was of the hunters not to kill the shark if all they wanted was the fins, etc. Casey protested -- "No! Don't kill the sharks!" So we had a talk about how God gave us dominion over the animals and that although God gave the animals to us as food, we have a responsibility to care for the animals and be humane in our treatment of them.

And then today Wilma and Mace trapped a snake under a bucket. Grandma's initial idea was to leave it there until Joe got home -- she thought he was coming home tomorrow night, but he really won't be home until Friday.

And there we were. It was up to me and Grandma to deal with the snake and leaving it under a bucket until Friday was not an option because we got all preachy with the 6 year old the night before.

We were assuming, of course, that the snake was poisonous because it was acting pretty aggressively before the bucket went over its head and that meant someone had to kill it because I can't have snakes hanging out by the doors under the house where the kids are constantly running in and out. But it would be cruel to leave a snake under a bucket for four days.

So I got a shovel and the camera and Grandma and I dealt with the snake.

We looked at it -- failed to identify it. We noted the triangular-ish shaped head and in our state of sheer terror, thought it must be a copperhead. I then commenced wacking it repeatedly with a shovel until it stopped moving and then went back inside with the picture to identify it. I totally get that I did that backwards.

Come to find out, that wicked looking snake is (was) a harmless corn snake. It was awful killing it -- but I would have gotten over that sick feeling if the snake had actually been poisonous. Now I know why my mom and my aunts always tell the story about my mom killing a rattlesnake in the backyard with a shovel -- it's a gruesome thing to have to kill any animal over the size of a cockroach. It takes awhile to get those images out of your head. So now I'm having these waking nightmares about getting to heaven and that snake will be waiting for me, accusing me of having killed it before it had a chance to truly live. When I told Joe that, he said, "Not many serpents make it to heaven." He has a point, I guess. He also said we could have sold that snake for $50 if I hadn't killed it. Another good point. I'm going to have to be less reckless with a shovel from now on when Joe's out of town.