Our Visitors.... :/

I haven't had any crazy creature posts in a while... and we've actually been avoiding them sort of.  But this year was a record year for us and rattle snakes.  We had our 5th... yep, there have been 5 in our yard in one season.  I seriously thought with it being the end of September we were past snake season, but I was wrong!  

This one made it all the way to the back patio.  I was folding laundry in our family room at about 11 pm and watching tv.  I could hear rattling (The tv was on and the windows were shut!!... Insert shutter here!) so I got up to turn off the fan thinking it was making the noise.  When that didn't fix it, I started paying closer attention.  That was when I heard the low growling coming from our dogs in the back yard.  I turned the tv off and then I could tell the rattling was coming from out there too. When I looked out the window both dogs were sitting very still about 6 ft. from the window facing me but staring at the bottom of the window. So I ran around to our bedroom back door to get a better view of the patio and sure enough... this is what was sitting there!

All coiled up and MAD! So I ran and got Patrick... I don't do the snake killing at our house!  :)  The dogs were getting way too close and not very calm, so we brought them in!  haha.  

And then Patrick and a friend, Nick, snake wrangled!  We had to get it away from the house and when it uncoiled and started to move... shutter again... we realized how big it was!!  He was a good 4-5 ft. long!!  Which is the biggest one we've seen at home so far!  (And hopefully ever!)

Long battle story short... the snake lost his head!  And his rattles made a nice trophy. :) 

I HATE SNAKES!!!