Add yet another creature to the collection of critters we have caught. I have almost quite taking pictures of all the reptiles, bugs and things the kids catch, just cause it isn’t new anymore. So unless it is really funny, I just leave the kids alone with their pets. We usually let them keep their animal friends for the day, cause they do like to play with them. Mason caught a turtle the other day and played with it all day long. Plus they keep catching one of those bright green frogs and play with him, too. Then they caught about 15 baby frogs over the course of two days.

But we finally caught a new species so that is worth a post. I was digging in my compost pile, getting ready to plant grass in the front lawn and say something wiggling around. I thought it was either a really big worm or a small snake. So I grabbed it cautiously, because lots of people around here have been seeing copperhead snakes, which are poisonous. And I had never seen a snake like this one. It was very wiggly (it calmed down a lot by the time we made the videos) but not aggressive–it never once opened its mouth. I searched on the Internet for snakes in Virginia and found out that it was a worm snake. So I finally got it out of the jar without my gloves on and held it while the kids touched it.

I turned out to be a nice snake, and the kids enjoyed holding it. It just liked to curl around their fingers and would just hide in your hand if you made an “empty fist”. I told the kids it was my favorite snake ever, cause it’s head was small and it never even tried to bite.

Whitney tried to scare Heidi with it (and succeeded) and then we all took it outside and said goodbye to it. Mason kissed it goodnight and we sent it back to its dirt pile.