Normally, a Costco shopping trip ends up with a basketful of stuff – you know how it is. You go in for one item and you come home with a garage full! Well, today, we got something we definitely didn’t go shopping for – a gopher snake! He was slithering his way across the parking lot when we headed out to our truck, and he was moving pretty quickly, too! We knew that his chances in that parking lot were slim – even though he’d crawled up into one of the little areas of bark where he quickly climbed up into the one and only little bush planted there. He was frightened. How did he end up in the Costco lot?! The levy runs along the store and somehow, he’d come from the grassy area across the fence. We figured some shopper, unfamiliar with snakes, just might grab a shovel and, well, that would be the end of our pretty golden-orange snake.
I ran back in and got a sack and we managed to get him out of the bush and into the sack. Then, we took a little trip down to the river near our house. On the drive over, he just coiled up on my lap inside the sack, standing up every so often to see if he could escape. He was a very curious snake! When we got near the river, we found a big field with old Valley Oaks (for cover from the hawks) and tall grasses. There. we let him have his freedom. He felt good coiled around my hand, smooth and cool, his little forked tongue darting in and out. I laid him gently in the grass and off he went, disappearing almost instantly, glad to be gliding on slick grass and not hot asphalt.
Last night, at the movies – we went to see “Water for Elephants” I grew very upset over the scene where the ring master beats the elephant. I know I was too loud in the theatre; my fiancé reminded me that I shouldn’t be so vocal and that it was just a movie and that no elephants were harmed. Still, it was very upsetting for me. After the film, I told myself that since animals were so very important to me, and that I’ve been wanting to volunteer or assist somehow with a rescue group, that I would start the very next day – I would get involved. I wasn’t sure where or how. God gave me a snake as my first assignment!
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