It’s a holiday weekend here in the States. Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer for most of us here in the US. It’s the last chance to get one last round of camping in before the kids head back to school or finish those outdoor projects we’ve been meaning to tackle.

But before I send you on your merry way, I thought I would share a rather, um, exciting event that occurred in my garden last Sunday. It’s made for some good chuckles among family and friends, and I thought I would include all of you in the fun. 
 

Amazing, right? So exciting. Well, my friend, it was a heck of a lot more exciting than a normal afternoon of gardening. You see, we grow our potatoes above ground by mulching them. It’s much easier than digging and hilling and makes for fewer potatoes punctured by the garden fork when digging them up. 

We plant several varieties of potatoes, so you never know what you’ll uncover. Red? Purple? Gold? I’ve got my 5-gallon bucket next to me, and I’m slowly filling it with potatoes. I’m kneeling on my big squishy gardening pad, noting how big the earthworms are this year under all that straw.

I’m happily yanking up handfuls of straw while an audiobook plays in my earbuds. Handful of straw, potatoes, handful of straw, potatoes, handful of straw and massive brown northern water snake, pota-- 

You ever had one of those moments where the information your eyes are collecting takes a moment for your brain to process? Yeah, this was one of those.

By the time I had picked up the handful of straw containing a huge water snake and haphazardly chucked both aside, I was already reaching for the next handful of straw. That’s when my brain caught up with my eyes, and I screamed. Bellowed is more like. Whatever sound it was, it had Andy running out of the house.  

“Snake. Big snake. Northern. Water. Nope. So much nope. Set the garden on fire. I’m done. I’m going to become an accountant come Monday.”

My sweetie went for the pitchfork and began gingerly setting aside small mounds of straw in his search for the Nope Rope hiding therein. After shuffling the straw around, he declared that my snake must have moved on.  

By this time, I had mostly recovered from my shock, and that primal, nay, biblical heel-crushing instinct kicked in. I grabbed my grandmother’s tool of choice for dealing with snakes – the garden hoe and shoved Andy out of the way before hacking mercilessly at the pile of straw. Sure enough, the straw began to move. 

This led to more hacking and more screaming on my part. Poor Andy stood back (outside the garden fence, I’ll have you know) in shock, probably rethinking allowing me access to all the sharp and pointy tools in his workshop.  

Once I wore myself out, I had a dead snake lying beside my potato bed, and my fitness tracker said I had met my step goal for the day. 
 

Maybe the month. Or the rest of this season.

Now, before you start in on me for murdering the snake, you have to bear in mind that northern water snakes are well known for being aggressive. While not poisonous, they are very much a bite-first and ask-questions-later kind of snake.

With my sweetie’s house completely surrounded by state game land, I am no stranger to critters in the garden and yard – big and small. I will happily share my garden with garter snakes and even rat snakes, but not this particular herp. She had already zapped her nose on the electric fence the week prior when she tried to get into the chicken run. 

The greedy little bugger wanted eggs to go with her potatoes. I wasn’t willing to give her a third “strike.” She’s compost.

In case you were wondering, I harvested the rest of my potatoes with much less excitement. Maybe we’ll just buy potatoes next year.