Big & long & scary!

Yup!  I saw my first snake today! Thomas and I had to sit out yesterday on much work outside because of stormy weather.  It brought hail and wind and driving rain...you know, a storm!  Anyhow, today we were eager to get going and get the roofing on the new mudroom.  We also hoped to seal it completely in to the house, so the next storm won't drive rain into the new space.  There is only so much I can do to help Thomas when he is getting organized, so I made up my own tasks. I have been weeding a ton for the last week and a half.  I separated the bindweed and seeds from the seedless weeds and grass I can dry and compost.  I started a good pile behind the tin shed the other day, but I still wanted to locate where the compost bin would go.  (Yes, even with ten acres, I am still using a hardware store compost bin - courtesy of Jim & Kathy Davis.  This way I can minimize animals getting into it when I add food waste.  Worm bin still to come.) Behind the tin shed, there are a short stack of tires, a manual hand pump and pipe for the well, makeshift dams for the ditch irrigation, and odds and ends of scrap wood.  I tipped up one crumbly 4' x 6' to find a piece of sheet metal underneath it - not worth the hassle of moving.  I tipped up what looked like two pieces of 2' X 6' boards, and I new the texture and pattern of the ground underneath the board was not earth.  I yelled, "Thomas!  Snake!" at the same time as I dropped the board.  Nothing moved under the board, not moved out from under the board.  My voice went hoarse, my breathing quickened, but still something was gripping my chest tight.  Mercy!  I tried to run, but my legs were unreliable.  A bowl of cereal and 20 minutes out of bed was hardly enough to prepare me for a SNAKE!!!  I got to Thomas, out of breath, and tried to to tell him, describe to him, what happened.  He hightailed it to the back of the shed, and I tried to keep up.  I showed him where it was, and when he tipped up the board, it lay there.  Motionless.  It was a bull snake - this I had mostly already figured out, as rattle snakes are aggressive and bull snakes won't bite.  It was really too cold to move super fast, but Thomas used the industrial flat hoe I got for chopping compost materials to apply pressure to the back of the snake.  It started moving towards the shed, but was stuck under the tool.  When Thomas tried to pull him back, he hissed, but that was really the only time it hissed.  Thomas asked if I wanted to see it, but it didn't matter what I said because he grabbed it by the tail and held it up.  I would guess it was about three feet.  He wasn't necessarily going to kill it, as it is relatively harmless, but I told him I wanted to see what to do if he wasn't around to off a snake for me.  It took several solid punches with the tool to get the head to come clean off, at which point Thomas picked it up by the tail again and waved it at me to see and feel it.  I was still trying to catch my breath, but I touched it a little.  It was dripping blood, so he tossed it further south towards the property line to let the birds eat it.  Next time he said we might skin it, but we just didn't have time today.  Next time...I don't even want to think about "next time"...