Snake!

We were out at the farm Friday evening and Tom was out in the carport moving a small stack of lumber. When he lifted up one of the pieces, there was a snake under it. He called me out there to see. I was sure it was a young rattlesnake. It was about 18-20 inches long and very slender. We couldn't see a rattle, but I thought that was because it was too young. We prodded it into an empty Gatorade mix can and put the lid on it. Then wondered, "What do we do now?" Kill it? Take it out and set it free?

Larry called a little later, so we asked him. He told us it would already have a rattle if it were a rattlesnake. Tom showed it to our handyman friend, Nolan, in the morning and he told us it was a bull snake. Since that's a good snake, they set him free. Perhaps he'll help us out by eating mice or something...that is, if we didn't traumatize him by making him stay in a Gatorade can all night.

With Nolan's help and a 14 hour work day, we managed to get the kitchen ready for the cabinet installation. The new window is installed, the doorway is blocked off, all the electrical work is done, all of the drywall patches are in place, and the 2x4's to raise the height of the cabinets have been nailed in place.

We're going to retain a bit of the 70's by reusing the 30 year old sound system control. It's a radio/intercom system that was also hooked up to an eight-track player. We took out the eight-track and moved the radio/intercom control over to where my desk is going to be. Then we'll hook up my under-cabinet mount TV/DVD/MP3 player to that. There are speakers in every room and on the back porch.