Snaked

We've been having a beautiful, sunny Spring this year, and I just couldn't wait to get out there an plant some pansies, my favorite flower. I kept asking at the local garden center and actually managed to buy a flat on the very day that they came in.

(In case you don't already know, pansies like the cold and can be planted as early as mid-March around here in Michigan, if you can find some for sale to buy.)

So I put some in pots on the porch, and some more in the ground around the landscaping by the walkway in front of our house. They looked so pretty! I was very pleased and went inside to get a drink of water. I came back out to put away my gardening things and stopped to admire my work again. In the short time that I was inside, a 3 foot long garter snake had made it's way out and wove it's slimy snake body in and out of each plant that I had so carefully placed in the ground.

Naturally, I began screaming like a maniac and got Timmy to come out and get gloves and a bucket and extract the hideous thing from my flowers and my sight. As he bravely performed this heroic feat, I stood there shrieking with a full-blown case of snake induced heebie-jeebies.

With the snake removed my pretty pansies went back to being a happy sight, until first thing the next morning when I came out and saw that each and every plant had been chewed down to the ground. Probably by a rabbit.

Yeah, I know. If I'd let the snake stay there, I'd still have the pansies. Doh!