leap'n Lizards it been a long week!

This week has been a whirl wind of unpacking, help in a friend who is in the hospital with her 4 year old daughter, (please pray for her she has 4 children and her husband is working 2 jobs and she is very sick) my grandma went into the hospital today for an obstruction in her intestines.  Wow this week has felt like 3 weeks and it is a good thing our vacation was so wonderful and relaxing or I just don't know what I would do.

BUT, in the midst of it all some very interesting animals have shown up at the happy family abode.  Our little squirrel dog who was supposed to be a present for our children and who really belongs to my husband was barking his fool head off the other morning which normally means I tune him out and Daddy flys to throw his boots on grab a shot gun and tear out into the woods, but as my sweet squirrel hunting husband checks out side to see where the dag'on is barking he sees him jumping all around on the ground (next to the kids swing set ) Daddy says I know he has a snake....  And he did!  When Daddy went outside to see and stop the dog who got bit by a copper head last year and should fear snakes with his life, but as Daddy went out the dog comes running up and barking like he was saying come here come here.  

So there you have our unwelcome visitor he is a brown water snake and if you can tell he has a round pupil which means he is not poisonous, its when the eyes are slits  up and down that the snake is a poisonous one.  Now let me say that snakes fascinate me and Daddy, we all ran out side and watched Daddy catch it, I ran for the camera so you have the picture.  We are the kind of people who stop in the middle of the road to move a turtle or a snake so they don't get squashed.  We were destined to home school, our kids also find our bug, snake, lizard fascination very interesting, we catch the snake and look up what kind it is in our North American Reptile Guide and release them back to their home (away from the swing set) We should also have an entire colony of turtles in our woods because my husband stops and brings them home every time he sees one in the road.

Then tonight just as our day was calming down and Daddy was weed whacking around the kids swing set (and let me say this find puts a whole new meaning in Jungle gym) and I hear him yell come here its a huge spider and this is what we found, I think it's a wood spider.

As I was running for my camera it occurred to me that not all people would run for a camera to take a picture of a spider or a snake and that I totally had something to blog about today!  Look really close at the next picture this mother spider has hundreds of babies on her back.