Not in my backyard

Yesterday morning Landen yelled down from upstairs that there was a snake. I immediately thought it was in our house, but thankfully it was outside next to the neighbor’s house. So I looked out of the window and sure enough there was a three foot snake slithering back and forth in the grass. He did that for about 15 minutes, and then went into our neighbor’s backyard. It came back out for a brief appearance and then went into OUR backyard! We haven’t seen it since and hope we never do.

Landen wanted to feed it and capture it to keep as a pet. He got a resounding “no” from me on that one.

With the help of Google Phil thinks it’s a Texas Rat Snake. They’re not poisonous but are very aggressive towards people. They coil up before they strike and shake the end of their tail as if they’re a rattlesnake (no rattle though). They don’t have very sharp teeth so they’re bites don’t always break the skin. Regardless, we’d rather read about it rather than find that out for ourselves.