Mary's corn snakes

... Mary's corn snakes ...

“I think you are going to want to blog this,” Mary said, as she placed a new aquarium in front of me.

The she laughed about as hard as she can laugh.

“These are my baby snakes, corn snakes, and I am going to feed them.”

There was a certain shock factor for me.

I was wishing she had shown this to me before supper for it would  have cured me of having an appetite tonight.

Mary imitating Medusa

My stomach muscles tightened and then just seemed to cramp.

 I don’t know why the snakes don’t have that effect on Mary.  She thinks they are sweet and so do her children.  They have raised them since their two usual snakes produced eggs ... and now this.

“I have to take the skins they have shed  out of the aquarium," she said, picking them out and putting them in the garbage.

"And I must feed them the baby mice.”

 I should have been able to figure out what they were going to eat without asking.

Mary brought 4 frozen baby mice upstairs in a bag, which is another feat.  Not every woman can pull that out of her freezer.

She would take one carcass and dangle it in front of one of the baby snakes which she isolated in another cage, trying to give it an appetite so that it would snatch onto the carcass of the mouse and swallow it.

To give me a closer look at the snakes, she took all five in her hand.

I couldn’t figure out how they stayed there and she pointed out that her hand is warm and they were all enjoying the heat of it, so stayed close to her.

Mary and Leo are out of friends who want a snake for free.

The cats,  Clay-ya and Willow were fascinated as well, by the snakes,  Clay-ya giving the walls of the aquarium many swats.

As she scratches at the aquarium her paw hits a pencil that is nearby, giving her the sense that she was making progress at catching a snake.

I waited for a long time, even videoed mealtime with the snakes.

It is not that I am disinterested.

I would have been happy going to a zoo and paying an entrance fee – that would have given me some time ahead to adjust to seeing snakes devour mice.

Arta