AAACCCKKK!!

Two nights ago I am about to get into bed and I notice a large spider on my pillow. I transfer him/her to another room but can't sleep in the heat so I take out the trash. In doing so I nearly step on a scurrying mouse. I finally get to sleep.

I wake up and go outside to water my herb garden. I inadvertently sprinkle a lizard who zooms out toward me at great speed. I jump and end up getting myself all wet. I try to figure out what creature is nesting in our rock wall behind the patio. All I ever see are chewed up cactus pieces and twigs blocking the entrance. A nearby canyon towhee gets mad at me and starts shrieking. Do towhees eat cactus? I think the nest might be rock squirrels. A friend of mine told me they carry the plague around here. Oh yippee.

I return inside and remove the dust ruffle from the bed. I figure this will keep spiders from crawling up onto my pillow. I vacuum vigorously just in case all this dust is attracting insects. Peaches is quite irritated by all the vacuuming and glares at me. I find a couple of large moths and transfer them outside. I do my yoga early because if I wait until later in the evening I'm absolutely positive something will crawl on me while I'm doing relaxation pose.

DH comes home and we have the usual "discussion" about whether or not to open the windows. I say no because then the house will be full of more bugs than usual. He says yes and finally prevails. I tell him he'd be happy living outside. We can move his chair and lamp outside and he can live happily among all the bugs and lizards and skinks and have fresh air 24 hours a day.

DH and I go outside to watch the sunset. A carpenter ant starts crawling up my leg. I notice something is digging tiny holes in the ground. The strawberries I noticed on the plants earlier in the day have disappeared. I return inside and turn on a baseball game. I start knitting socks in the dark. I go over to the computer and notice something coiled up on the floor next to the desk chair. It is dark but I can still tell what it is.


It is a dead snake.



You gotta love living in New Mexico! I don't want to know where the snake came from but I suspect he/she met his demise from one of the cats. It was just a small snake so Peaches didn't seem too perturbed.We had more garter snakes come in our last house in NM - a brand new custom built home so you'd assume the doors and windows were pretty tight. Our elderly neighbor there found a 6 foot long bull snake on her bedroom dresser. I'd probably just move out at that point.