It's been a while since I've checked in. Here's a bit of what's been going on...Bubbles & Elliott - The dogs graduated from obedience school on May 9. We were very proud of them as they both won awards. Bubbles came in second place with Buffy in the experienced handlers category. Elliott came in third place with me in the inexperienced handler category. We took the class with friends of ours, Jennifer and Charles and their dogs, Hazelle and Noah. Hazelle and Jennifer came in 1st place in the experienced handler category. And I don't know if this is something to brag about, but Noah and Charles came in 1st place in the senior category.
Nootril Drop - When it rains, it pours and I'm not talking about the recent weather. We go for some time without any gigs, and then we have been hit with many of them. We played Oliver's Pizza in Peoria Hts last week. Yesterday we played our first wedding close to Manito, IL. Both gigs went pretty well, though I was a bit nervous about the wedding gig. I'm use to playing to drunk people in a bar that will likely forget that evening as opposed to playing to people getting drunk at an event they want to remember. I think I'd rather be forgotten.
We've got another gig for Ambulance Days in Princeville in a couple of weeks and then Dennis and Shari's hog roast 2 weeks after that.
Unwelcomed Visitor - In late April, I came home to check on the dogs. I let them out the back where Bubble went out onto the deck. I followed with Elliott behind me. There on the deck sitting between 2 different planks of wood was a 3 foot long black snake. Don't ask me how it got there.
Bubbles walked past it and never noticed a thing. I made Elliott go back inside. While there's little or no threat of it being poisonous, I didn't what the dogs to get a bunch of snake bites from it. To make a long story short, I made the dogs stay inside. I speculated that the snake worked its way up on the deck in an effort to grab some robin eggs which were probably laying in a nest underneath the deck.
I allowed about and hour and a half for it to leave but no go. It continued to weave itself in and out of the deck railing spindles. Interesting. In the meantime, I tried to look up what kind of snake it was on the Internet. I found a really close match, which said it likes to lay eggs around April/May in gravel and rocky areas. Baby snakes then hatch around July. We have a bunch of river rock under our screen porch. And that did it for me. I then issued the death warrant for our unwelcomed reptilian visitor.
Remembering an experience from when I was real little and my Dad did a snake in with a hatchet, I tried the same thing. Unfortunately, I was not as successful and only pissed this thing off. I allowed it to weaken and then finished the job with a flat shovel and a whack on the head.
Snakes are fun to watch, but I still hate them.
