I am petrified of snakes. Like all sense of reasoning shuts down completely when confronted with one poisonous or not, which had me marvel at the coral snake that I could even process how pretty it was... but yeah no snakes I can't handle them at all. I used to be able to, I used to play with garden snakes the whole "have them bite your ear and wear as earrings" and all that. Loved them, played with them constantly. They were so cool. And then I watched Riki Tiki Tavi. With the psycho cobra stalking after the little boy. In and of itself it wasn't traumatizing but right after watch the movie my dog got loose and in chasing her I fell into the neighbor's garden where they had a "fake" cobra. Saw that swore it ate my dog and ran back to the house where my grandma promptly put me down for a nap, not caring that the dog was still missing and I was in tears over a cobra eating her.

Had the worst nightmare of my "at that point very short" life. That my dog was crying and calling to me from inside the snake and nobody would save her. Though I woke up and the dog was there, whimpering beside me because I was having a nightmare, it didn't matter. From then on snakes became a complete phobia. I couldn't even look at a magazine that had a picture of a snake without screaming and throwing it across the room while breaking out in a cold sweat and hyperventilating until I was almost 20 years old.

I just can't handle them in the slightest, I need to move to New Zealand or Ireland where there aren't any snakes . Even worms cause me to have a bit of a break down. Though that's thanks to my parents letting me read the Conquer Worm when I was only 5 years old. And let me tell you I caught the full and complete meaning of that poem... Worms are going to eat me when I die.... So all those worms I used to cut in half to make into 2 worms are going to have their revenge once I'm dead.

I'm slowly getting a little better though. I don't hyperventilate when I see a snake anymore, and I don't breakout in a cold sweat. I do still scream, shake and lose my sense of reason, but I can mostly live with that. . I could live with it a lot better if they weren't constantly showing up on my doorstep though. Saw another snake today... thankfully this one was in the yard, don't know what kind it was other than it wasn't a rattle snake... other than that who knows. Couldn't even tell you the color of it as it had me plastered against the side of the house though I was inside the porch, and creeping to the door which I promptly slammed shut and haven't opened since.

The poor GB doesn't get to go outside and play today. And the hawks that have returned to the neighborhood need to get busy on eating those suckers. I know there was a snake in the side yard the other day only because I saw the hawk swoop down and snatch it up.

But here in about a month I'll be running away to the NH countryside. There will still be snakes but only garden snakes and they're pretty shy. I can handle them for the most part out at my aunt's house. I mean it's in the country, that's where snakes belong, not in the middle of a subdivision! So I think there's a bit of the psychological aspect in dealing with them better when I'm in their space rather than them being in my space.

But the GB should be thrilled... She'll have lots of room to run and play, a HUGE garden to pick her own little snacks from, a shallow creek to splash and play in, all sorts of places to climb on, in and around... And that's just at the house out there, there's still all sorts of mountains nearby that she can go and play at, museums that are designed almost completely and utterly for little ones, plenty of places that little petting zoo type things where she can play with all sorts of animals. I might even be a little lenient in my 3 years old rule for riding a horse (she'll be a month shy) and take her out horseback riding, failing that my aunt's neighbor has a horse that pastures right in front of my aunt's house so the GB will get to see a "real" horse up close.

In the meantime while we're up there, I'll have about 6 extra adults to keep an eye on the little one at least half the time, and she'll be able to wear her little self out completely while I enjoy the fresh cool mountain air. Good thing I've taught her about nap time, though I think even if I hadn't she'd definitely figure it out up there. She's going to be worn out

I hope it's all right to chime in even though I'm not a frequent poster here.

I won't tell my story about a snake that turned up on my patio shortly after I moved to this apartment some years ago.

I'm not scared of snakes though I don't think I could be as friendly with them as Doydie.

Starznight, I didn't see the movie of "Rikki Tikki Tavi" but as a child I read the story many times. It was a scary story to read. I don't think I'd like to see the movie even if I read the story a few times.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Oh Starz, I want to come with you and run through those fields, and see those kids museums. And yes, take naps!!!! Have fun and I hope you meet only nice snakes. But what is it about putting worms together????? How do you do that?

LOL we didn't put the worms together, but certain types of worms can be cut in half making two complete worms. They have to be the proper length and you have to cut them in the right sections but they can be split artificially with a sharp blade giving two healthy living worms from a single worm. Unfortunately as kids my brother and I thought if we could make 2 worms by cutting them in half to sell to the bait shop... wouldn't it be even better if we could make 4?! I'll spare you the details of the great worm massacre of '84.

But it comes down to no outward extremities but can still move, that has really become my phobia. It's not so much that they're snakes, or that they're worms... its that they don't have arms, legs or fins and can still chase me down . Convoluted phobia I know, but like all phobia's there isn't much logic behind them, if there was... it wouldn't be a phobia .

Now on the other hand I'm perfectly fine with lizards, spiders, centipedes and millipedes there's no end to the number of acceptable limbs for me. Too many is always preferable to too few. Though it was slightly unnerving to wake up with a black widow spider on my pillow but she didn't bite me and was safely released back into the wild outdoors before my DH found her where he would have freaked out. For him they can have too few extremities but never too many, his limit is 4. No spiders, centipedes or millipedes for him.

Starz, you must live in a very interesting place. And i still don't understand how you can splice two worms and make them into one. But that is OK. Some things are not meant for everyone to understand. Not that I mind worms.

No it's 1 worm into 2 worms , not the other way around.

And yeah I learned quickly the SE Georgia is not for the faint of heart. We have multiple varieties of venomous snakes, black widows, brown recluses, palmetto bugs which is just a fancy term for HUGE flying cockroaches, alligators, wild boars, gnats (aka the flying teeth), harmless armadillos that sound like elephants tramping through the underbrush, slightly less harmless possums, raccoons the size of bears, all on top of oppressive humidity, and killer heat. Oh and of course the yellow flies and fire ants hills every five feet.

Keep in mind these are all in the CITY... I'm not even talking about living off the beaten trail in some shanty. My folks live a bit more towards the beaten path (still only 2 miles from my house) and deal with all that in addition to flocks of vultures, crazed wild turkeys that love to block them from getting to their cars, snapping turtles and the odd puma sighting.

Oh and forgot all the lizards, tons of lizards, they run all around the place down here and it's nothing to find them inside your house, no matter how little you open windows or doors, they are reverse houdinis, no where they can't break into. And forget being able to see out your windshield during love bug season, it's not going to happen.

And if all that doesn't get you, you also have to hope against hope that when your neighbor is burning some brush that they didn't get any oleander in there as it's toxic plant even when burning, and if you're weeding your garden be sure to wear gloves to guard against the multiple varieties of stinging nettle and burrs, and don't forget your shoes outside, not only to guard against reptilian and mammalian threats but to protect the instep from gum balls.

Great place can't you tell , I can't wait till the hubby is ready to retire so I can run away and never return LOL

Starz, I don't think you should ever work for the state of Georgia's department of tourism. But people were telling me today about the wonderful city of Savannah

Starz, I hope your DH is considering early retirement--for your sake. You're apt to be eaten alive by something!

When my boys were young.....maybe 5 and 9.....they thought it would be fun to put a fake plastic snake under one of my tomato plants.

Well, here I come.....ready to water and check on the progress of my "garden".

It was probably 30 seconds before I noticed the snake...and it was a REAL looking fake snake.....but I didn't wait or check to see if it was real or fake, dead or alive. I just ran. And screamed.

I ran around to the front of the house and the garage doors were open so I ran in and then into the kitchen. Found my two boys, standing at the sliding door that goes out to the deck, in fits of laughter.

If I could have kept myself from laughing with them I probably would have had some cross words for them but we just stood there together and laughed. I'm glad I didn't scold them.....it was all in fun and it probably was a funny scene to watch me scoot out of there so fast! They still remember this and talk about it to this day.

So they may be sitting in their house right now smiling and laughing and some one asks what they are thinking about. And they just say 'my Mom'. Isn't that sweet!!!!