a walk on the wild side

as i was walking through the backyard, i saw a little snake trying to slither up the ramp into the storage building. it was such a tiny thing, and i thought little raven would get such a kick out of it, i just scooped it up for "show and tell".

i called summer and told her that i had just caught a little snake for raven and asked how soon they could be out to "play" with it. she loaded up the girls and came right on out -- with raven still in her dance duds and hair-do. i was keeping the little snake in a coffee can while waiting on them because i didn't want to hurt it by handling it too much.

when they got there, summer dumped the little snake out on the concrete patio for raven to watch. she thought it was just pretty neat and she has always had a liking for snakes, even the plastic play snakes. i've always feared that she would pick up a real snake thinking it was one of her plastic play snakes.

she really liked watching it, but she wasn't really too sure of touching it. i guess she figured that if memaw could touch it then it must be ok. i held the snake's head while the body wrapped around/through my fingers. it was an amazingly strong little snake, as it was pulling so hard to get its head out of my fingers and i was afraid to squeeze too tightly to keep a good hold on him. i followed the old philosophy of "if it hurts too bad, it'll quit doing that" and that seemed to work.

raven was a little tentative on first touching the snake, but a few gentle touches convinced her that it wasn't "gross" or "gusting" (translation = disgusting!). after a little encouragement, she let the snake wrap around her fingers as i held it, but she thought it tickled.

the more she held it, the more comfortable she was looking at it and studying it. i never let go of it so that she ever held it on her own. i'm sure this little snake was not dangerous in the least, but still did not want to allow the opportunity for it to scare her. i wanted this to be a fun learning time to remember.

after we had spent a few minutes looking at the snake and talking about the different features, we put it back in the coffee can and carried it out to the edge of the field so we could "let him go back to his mommy". raven really didn't want to let it go, but she did understand how a little snake might want his mommy -- so that made it all ok.

after letting him out on the ground, raven and summer waited until he quickly disappeared into the beanfield, just sure that he knew right where his mommy was and was quickly on his way to her.

now that this adventure on the wild side was over, she had new things to talk about and more adventures of animals and life on the farm to look forward to. raven truly does enjoy looking at nature and learning all about the things that she can. it's so amazing how little ones are just like sponges, soaking up everything around them and all the information they can get.

from feeding the cattle to checking on the horses to playing with the new kittens to helping care for baby sister to dance/ballet class to coming out to play w/ the baby snake -- all falls into a typical day for raven it seems.