Boom Sticks!

What do you do when

You find out there is a snake den in the ground under your house,

It's May, and

You don't have any other plans for the day?

You drive an hour to New Mexico (where selling fireworks is legal year-round) in hopes of finding some potent (snake-repelling) smoke bombs!

Road Trip!

* * *

We had a road trip car picnic on the I-10...

I ate a juicy red D'Anjou pear...

...and eventually took the Rodeo exit and found Phantom Fireworks...

It was an impressive warehouse...




...very organized...

Hayden was in heaven...

Just in case you're wondering what $700 would buy you...

(Note: everything was buy one, get one free...and THIS box was about 4 feet tall.)

Reminder: We are currently in NEW Mexico, not Mexico...

(Incase the flags in the background are confusing you.)

Hayden had to go "shoeless" after blowing-out a flip-flop at the picnic breakfast that morning...

Even Ella was enjoying strolling down each isle...

Fireworks labels are very entertaining:

I think they recycle a lot of the same fireworks ideas with a variety of different names. They are still funny, though...

PS: We set off three smoke bombs, but apparently the snakes weren't "home" at the time. Instead, we turned all the cobwebs (around the mouth of the snake den) purple.

The snake den hole is under the clothes dryer vent. Those clever snakes have the closest thing to "forced air heat" that any wild animal could possibly have!

Creepy-Crawlies

Check out this spider we saw (the other night) in one of the shops!

I did not have a zoom lens, so I actually tip-toed and bent-over the nasty thing in order to take this picture.

(It was about the size of a small lemon.)

I've held taranchulas in my hands.

They seem gentle.

Less like a spider and more like a small, hairy, gentle, slow-moving animal.

Really.

Is there such a thing as a blonde taranchula? How about an albino taranchula? (Oh wait, this one didn't have hair.)

Come to think of it, when we chased it away it ran SUPER fast (unlike all the slow-moving taranchulas I've always seen).

Well, then...I guess it was just a really huge spider.

Gross.

* * *

I told the kids to give me their best "Scary Face" in order to chase the spider away. This is what they came up with:

Erin's scary face (more like a SCARED face)...

Emma's scary face (reminds me of SNL's church lady face)...

Mia's scary face (the temporary tatoos might help instill a little fear)...

Hayden's scary face...





We'll keep working on it...

Oh Yes...It's THAT Time of Year Again!

See snake....

See snake tail rattle...

See Rich stack patio chairs and use hockey stick to push snake away from house...


See Ben shoot snake with rifle...
"SHOOT, Ben, Shoot!"

...Maybe NEXT time, snake should think twice before coming to my house and biting my dog!

"Oh, wait...snake is now headless? Nevermind."

"Good shot, Ben!"

The End.

* * *

Maggie is fine now, by the way. Her head looked like a giant marshmallow puff over the weekend, but she is now happy and healthy once again.


See the black and white stripes by the rattle? That means this is a Western Diamondback:

(...and since we aren't talking about baseball here, I am happy to announce that I will NOT be cheering for the Arizona Diamondbacks today.)

You can read about the snake that almost killed me last year HERE.
Or, to "brush-up" on the deadliest local snakes, click HERE.
In rememberance of the giant snake we found in the barn, go HERE.
For my visual explaination of the effect of a rattlesnake biting a dog, go HERE.