Ok, so Griselda signed us up to volunteer in order to get free Disneyland tickets. That was this weekend. It was Griselda, Lathan, and I pulling weeds in a nature preserve. Lathan said that it wasn't any fun but was excited to be introduced to two things he had never seen before: poison oak, and live wild snakes. Every mother's and father's dream.
So onto the snake story.....
Griselda and I were pulling out these bushes called "broom something or other" and some were easy and some were hard. We had these special tools that would fit around the base of the plant and you could uproot them pretty easy. Well sometimes you just started to uproot them and you needed to really yank on them afterward to get them out still. So, while we were dodging the poison oak, something that Lathan was sure he had already got all over his body within thirty seconds of arriving even though he hadn't touched anything because he had some itches, and I was pulling the roots up and Griselda was pulling the top of the bush. We made some headway but really weren't all that successful. So after I used the root pulling tool and started the process, Griselda and I switched places. She was now pulling at the base and I at the top. This technique was money. The plant that we were pulling had its base covered with pine needles due to the near by trees. As we finally gave our one last pull, the plant, pine needles and a 2 1/2 foot curled up gopher snake came plopping down in our direction. Griselda ended up holding this weed / plant with a snake about 1 1/2 feet from her face. She quickly screamed. "Snake!" Everyone turns. "A BIGGGG Snake!!!" Lathan is back pedaling as fast as he can, along with Griselda. She ends up briskly walking away from the snake down the trail towards the other group volunteers. A couple of nature buffs come over and quickly explain that this is a gopher snake and not a rattle snake although it will try to mimic the rattle snake. That is, once they were able to find the "big snake". It was pretty funny to see. I told Griselda that it wasn't really that big of a snake, and that gopher snakes can get 5 - 6 feet long. She said that I wasn't as close as she was and that if I were, I would be singing a different tune. Any way, we all survived. No snake bites. No poison oak. And Lathan said that he will never volunteer again because it was soooo boring. Tough being a kid.
Dave
