The World Is Not Big Enough For All Of Us

To be filed in the "COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE" folder: There is a snake living in my garden.

I KNOW. This is a thing that is not okay. Not even a little bit. Not at all all.

It's inevitable, of course, that there would be unwanted wildlife in our yard. There are miles of untamed property directly behind us, so we've had coyotes, deer, fox, endless bunnies ... all sorts of things. We've had snakes multiple times as well, but normally it's a once and done situation.

I find a snake. I catch a snake using a net on the end of a veeeeeeery long pole. I escort the snake to a spot veeeeeery far behind our property. We never see each other again. THAT IS HOW IT WORKS.

Except now. I have escorted the exact same snake to NotSupposedToReturnLand three times now and all three times the damn thing has somehow managed to find its way back to the little strawberry patch right next to our patio.

Unacceptable.

I tried putting about 5000 moth balls all over the place to make the snake feel unwelcome, but that didn't work, so WE ARE AT WAR. I will win.

Meanwhile, a certain small person who apparently loves all creatures large and small has decided that she has a new best friend. Oh, that's right. Miss Mila is trying to make friends with the snake.

For the record, it's not a venomous snake. I'm not genuinely worried about this situation, but I am OH HELL NO about this situation. Mila is constantly over by the strawberries checking for her maybe friend. She's leaving ripe strawberries for it to eat. She's even leaving it leaves that she keeps pulling off trees so that it can hide better.

What she doesn't know, though, is that it's an Eastern Garter snake. It eats frogs. It is absolutely the reason the frogs are disappearing from the pond at a mind-blowing rate.

I'm going to have to make Mila pick between her friends the frogs (I think there are two left) and the snake. GUESS WHO GETS TO STAY, Y'ALL.