We managed to get some projects done around the house the week my sister and nieces were here. I just never got pictures taken to show them off! I finished painting the playroom that week with my nieces help on the tree. They also brought some wall decals from Eric Carle's "Brown Bear" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" books. We used the stickers in the playroom for finishing touches on animals that I was NOT about to attempt to draw! :)
We also had the house pressure washed (there was a lot of mildew on the side of the house!) as well as the porch stained, railings painted, and carport repainted. Will was planning to take care of the staining himself, but with all the time he had scheduled to go out to the field, he realized he wouldn't get around to it until summer... and who wants to be doing a task like that in summer here?! I put a picture of the back porch when we first moved in followed by the new pictures.
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| The house when we moved in... |
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| and now with a new stain and paint! |
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| A new coat of paint on the door as well! :) |
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| We cut down two dead trees back here and planted a dogwood tree in the middle |
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| Our garden beds with peppers, tomatoes, green beans.... and whatever else Will planted! |
I had the itch to paint more around the house, but not sure if I want to change colors in any rooms or not. I like the neutral paint color throughout the house, but Will and I both are not too happy with the fact that it's a low grade paint so every mark Grayson makes on the wall with his sticky fingers doesn't wash off well at all! I think our next big task will probably be to repaint the walls throughout the house in a semi-gloss paint so they're easier to wipe down if needed. Just a matter of figuring out if we want to change any colors to any rooms! :)
Monday evening I found an unwelcome visitor in the backyard! I had just gotten both the boys in bed and went to take out the trash. There sitting in the bed by the back steps was a copperhead snake! I'm not even sure how I saw it. It blended in with the straw in the bed and was small. Also, it was tucked up next to the edge of the porch under the rose bush. I had merely glance in that direction thinking about needing to turn on the sprinkler to water the garden when it caught my eye. It hadn't moved or made a sound yet somehow I managed to see it sitting there coiled up. I quickly threw out the trash, came back and looked at it from the top of the steps. I'm not a snake expert by any means, but my gut instinct and remembering one thing I learned in Girl Scouts YEARS ago was that venomous snakes typically have a triangular head shape. I noticed this one had so I grabbed the camera to take a picture to compare online. I posted the picture on Facebook to see if anyone knew right off hand what it was and while talking to a couple friends on there about it I saw through researching on the web that it was copperhead which is indeed venomous. There was no way I was going to just let that thing slither away and have me worry about where it went in the yard, nor was I going to be killing it on my own! Of course both the male neighbors were gone (Will was still in the field of course!) but I talked to the lady next door and her dad was on the phone. He suggested I call the fire department because in his area they'll come take care of things like that. The fire department is literally around the corner so the neighbors high school son stayed at the house for me while I drove over there to let them know about the snake. The two fire fighters at the fire station came, and then police backup met them at the house. Too bad Grayson was already in bed because he would have been thrilled to see the fire truck AND police car right outside our door! :) They all confirmed that it was a copperhead and the firemen killed the snake by pinning it down with a hook on a stick then killing it with a shovel. While I feel better knowing that it didn't slither away, it definitely has me worried about Grayson playing in the backyard on his own! We may be doing more research to see if there's anything that will be safe to put out with Grayson playing that will keep snakes out of the yard. Just another unfortunate part to living in coastal GA is having snakes and poisonous spiders to worry about! I hope this doesn't keep any of you from visiting though!!!
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