Sunday, June 27, 2010

Operation Relocation/Extermination

Got snakes? We've got a lot less now than we did a few days ago.  Caleb's not afraid of much but snakes would make his top 3 list if he had to make one.  North Idaho snakes are harmless yet still creepy.  Every time we head onto shore we hear or see snakes in the grass.  Caleb decided it was time for the boys to relocate a few of them.  He made this decision while he was out of town however.  So I put the boys on the task.  Elias became self proclaimed "spotter" and Isaac was the snake wrangler.  After an hour or so they had caught 6.  Ewwww!  We put them in a bucket and took them over to the State Park in our boat and released them.  Later that same day they went after it again and caught 10 more!!! I'm not talking about a large square footage hunting area either.  This load we hauled out in the boat and let go "near" shore and watched them swim.  They went all directions.  Several chased after the boat, some went for the bridge and a few headed toward shore.  With the water temperature barely above 60 degrees we're not sure how many made it.  Survival of the fittest I suppose.  We've taken out 3 more now for a total of 19 snakes! Nasty!

The boys are completely in their element here.  Thursday they decided to become "swamp loggers".  There were a lot of large logs floating in our bay so they waded, swam and kayaked working very well together I might add to get them to shore.  I wasn't sure what Caleb would think about them bringing in all those logs and cluttering up our beach but once he came in on Friday he was pretty pleased with their work.  The wood will actually make great firewood so he helped the boys beach the rest of the logs and then cut them with a chainsaw.  Now he'll need to split it and have the boys stack it in our wood shed.  Sounds like a lot of work for "vacation" but that's the kind of stuff Caleb LOVES doing.

We've successfully accomplished 3 weeks of living on the lake.  After this week Caleb will be taking a week's vacation.  We're all excited for that!

6 comments:

alison said...

Snakes are definitely in my top 3! I don't envy you that chore and all.

Jill said...

That picture of the snakes made me want to jump out of my skin!!!! GROSS!!!!! Could your kids come round up the snakes in our backyard and get rid of them?! I hope I don't have that many out there, though!!

Kris said...

SICK!

Elizabeth said...

all I can say is EEEWWWWW!! For real?? But looks like your boys are in pure Heaven!

Sherylen said...

Get a cat. My cat loves catching snakes and playing with them till they die. Which the boys enjoy watching!

KrisJ said...

I thought that title meant you were going to announce you were coming HOME! DANG SNAKES!! COME HOME COME HOME COME HOME!! Ill take care of all the snakes here for you!