I love the out doors....

So long as it stays out doors. When things that thrive in nature move into my home, I don't deal with it well.

Case & point: The tree frog that decided to vacation in my shower last week.

Husband was getting in the shower one morning after chores when he hollered, "Hey, FarmWife, come see what's in here!" Initially I was a bit hesitant because...well....because my husband can be a little...well...how to put this discreetly?......(Daddy you might want to skip this part-fair warning)....a bit strange when it comes to mating calls (I warned you, Daddy). But my second & nearly as immediate thought was, "Oh no. There's a snake in the bath tub. Please Lord, do not let there be a snake in my bath tub!"

The certainty of a snake in the house stemmed from our earlier adventures last weekend.

As many of you know, our house is surrounded by woods. Husband had to clear out a decent chunk of one of the woods when we put our house in. There were 2 tree stumps left on the west side of our driveway & Uncle E brought over a bunch of flowers & planted them between the stumps. A few years ago, one stump rotted out entirely. The second stump has been moving that way for quite a while now. Last spring, the FarmHands and I found a nest of hatched snake eggs in the base of the still standing stump. There were no snakes in sight & after investigating the empty shells for a few hours, they were promptly forgotten.

Last weekend, I walked past the stump and a flutter in the wind caught my eye. When I got closer I realized it was a snake skin stuck in the rotten wood. I called the FarmHands over to check it out & BabyGirl asked if she could take it to school for their science lab. I got a Ziploc bag & gently freed the skin from the stump. As I was pulling it out I discovered 3 or 4 more full shed skins. We gathered them up, found a few remaining egg shells, and packaged them all to send to school.

That's when I got stupid brave. With a twig, I poked away some of the rotten wood to see how far gone the stump was. As a large chunk fell away, a small head shot out of the stump at me. I screamed & jumped & laughed all at once (you know the reaction, we've all seen it before). Husband came to the rescue with his shovel (he was on his way to dig out what he could of the stump), scooped the small tree snake up, and tossed it out in the woods. As he continued to demolish the stump, snakes continued to slither out of the bottom of the stump. In all, we "relocated" 4 small snakes and made an entire colony of ants homeless. My theory is that the snakes had been living in the stump off of ants sharing their space.

A few days later Uncle Gick came over & the FarmHands were telling him about the family of snakes when one more slithered out mid skin shed. It shot into a clump of day lilies and Bitsy decided to help it shed it's skin. As she grabbed the tail of the skin, the snake made a break out the front of the clump of greenery & what was left of it's shed.

So after our Week of the Five Snakes, when Husband called to me from the bathroom, I was sure what I was about to find.

I was wrong.

Under the soap holder in my shower, sat a walnut sized, rather terrified tree frog. How he got into the house, much less my shower, we may never know. But what I do know is when I tried to catch him with a paper towel, he jumped out from under the soap dish, landed briefly on my arm (causing another scream, jump, laugh), on to the floor & under the edge of our vanity where Husband cornered & caught him. I tossed him out the side door with a stern warning not to come back in my house no matter how posh he finds my bathroom.

Yes, I love the out of doors. I just don't want to share my living space with it.