Give Me Ants at the Picnic Any Day

Sexy Nerd and I are finally, finally almost ready to break ground on our mountain dream home outside of Albuquerque, NM. How much longer has it taken than we'd expected? Well, I thought we'd have been living in the house a long time ago!

We hiked our lot yesterday, double checking the house placement and making sure the windows are correctly located to maximize the views. We have new neighbors on both sides of our lot and we discovered one of the homes has built a new fence since we last visited, about 10 feet of which is on our property! In the interest of making friends with our neighbors though, we decided not to say anything.

There's a tree that has fallen over at the top of our lot. Our plan is to eventually turn it into a fireplace mantle. In the meantime, it has been a great picnic spot, complete with 360 degree views of the mountains. We'd packed a snack and a beer each and up we hiked to the edge of our property, looking forward to resting on that fallen log. It was a warm, sunshiny day. On the way, we remarked how surprising it is that we've owned our lot for so many years but have never come across a single snake.

Can you tell where I'm heading with this?

Says this city-slicker...OH HOLY HELL! OH NO, OH NO, OOOOH NOOOO!!!

We were nearly at the picnic tree when Sexy Nerd (thank goodness) saw this enormous bull snake, lounging casually beneath it. It's difficult to tell, but his head (complete with his beady little snake eyes - yuck!) is underneath the cactus. It figures that the cactus needles wouldn't bother him, the creepy, soulless monster that he is. I am never, NEVER picnicking there ever again.

He's not so scary, you think? That's what I thought too, at first. After all, bull snakes aren't poisonous and one of the benefits of moving to the mountains is enjoying the wildlife. But then I wanted to take a better photo for my blog. And then? Then this fanged, bloodsucking bastard RAN faster than I can run, the opposite direction, which goes without saying because otherwise I surely wouldn't be typing this because I'd be dead. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'd be telling you that it's ridiculous to describe a snake as running, because obviously something without any legs is incapable of doing such a thing. Fine. He freaking sprinted like he was going for a gold medal. I may have screamed.

I'm just going to sit inside my mountain dream home. I'll park inside the garage and will never have to actually set foot in the ~~great~~ horrifying outdoors. And if a snake runs/sprints/leaps/gallivants inside when the garage door is open? Obviously, I'll have no choice but to burn our mountain dream home right to the ground.

*Update*

Since writing this post, I've learned my new home has snakes living IN THE TREES. Aggressive ones.

WTF, nature?

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