'nakes!!

It's been one of those days.  Hit the floor running, although breakfast was easy, the kids only wanted fruit and bread.  They devoured packages of strawberries, apricots, plums and watermelon.  In fact, they ate ALL the watermelon, and I had bought that for me!! 

Then I ran around trying to clean the house.  It's homeschool co op day, and I wonder if I'm the only one in the world who is afraid if she leaves her house, she will die, and friends and family will come over and see a mess and think she's a slob?  So I cleaned as fast as I could, while Mary Susannah finished her co op homework mere minutes before we had to leave...

We were just putting on the finishing touches (combing hair, finding shoes) when someone showed up to buy a puppy.  Now that's a very good thing, but the timing was bad...

Got the puppy sold, got everyone's hair done, got out the door into the car and sped off to take Mary Susannah to a quick eye appointment before co op.  She wanted to switch to two week lenses, and they wouldn't do it until they saw her, and she had thrown away her last pair of contacts last night. 

We got through that pretty quick, and even had time to visit the new farmers market, where I think I've made a new friend!  We'll be back to that place before long, but maybe after they've had time to get a little more produce.  I did get a lavender plant, though.

We made it to co op, and I taught my classes.  Then I sat out with the ladies and talked, something I am very good at.  Also talked to son Spencer, who had a bicyclist crash into his car today.  Thankfully it was at a stop sign, and they were just picking up speed.  Everything is alright, except for two males upset because their 'wheels' have scuffs on them...

Came home, tended chickens and goats, checked on dinner in the crock pot, talked to son Max on the phone.  Then I laid on my bed to relax and read for just a few minutes...only two chapters, I promised myself...

...when Tommy ran in, red faced and in great excitment.  He said, and I quote:  "Me n Luke find a nake.  Me n Luke will lare.  It dust a lil nake.  Me n Luke want you lome get it."  Which, interpreted, means "Me and Luke found a snake.  Me and Luke will share.  It's just a little snake.  Me and Luke want you to come and get it."

Yeah.  Okay.  You want ME, the old lady mother who is TERRIFIED of snakes, to come get it???

At the same time, no way are they going to play with some snake on a piece of property where rattlesnakes have been found without the mama.  So I hauled my poor, tired achy body off my comfortable bed with the good book, and followed the red cheeked, very excited little boy, who RAN off into the yard on flying feet.
And there's Luke out in the ditch, with a tiny snake by the tail.  Grinning like a wild man.  And I found a jar sitting nearby (one of my wide mouth canning jars, by the way, which is something we drink out of!  I wondered where they were all going).  Somehow, without touching that nasty thing, I manage to load it up in the jar.  Next, Luke shows me the frog he found:

And we drop the frog into the jar with the snake.

Which doesn't make the snake or the frog one bit happy, I might add...

Next, I find Luke chaining this jar with the snake and the frog to his scooter:

Pretty smart if I do say so myself.  But this seems to officially make it Luke's snake and frog in Tommy's eyes, so he begs me to find him a snake and frog of his own.
Yeah, SURE I will...
But he sure begs cute:

Just this big, he's telling me.  That looks pretty big to me.
But Luke tells him he knows where snakes and frogs hide, and they run off together to see if they can find one:

Under my front porch??  Do snakes and frogs really hide under my front porch, and listen to me walking around up there???
I only put those boards there to keep the dog from having puppies under there.  If I put the boards back up - since the boys have knocked them down - will it keep snakes and frogs from multiplying under there too??

I keep telling these boys I'm an old mommy, and I will have a heart attack easy.  They aren't listening though...as I sit here writing this, they just now ran in the house, Angel-Leah in cohoots with them this time, bearing yet another baby snake.  This one's Tommy's, they say. 

Lovely...

Why don't they play with all those toys in their bedrooms?