"A Snake in the Bush"

   Son has a way of always twisting sayings around to suit the current situation.  When I found a sweet rat snake hanging out in the deutzia bush, his comment was "A snake in the bush is better than two in the hand." lightly paraphrasing the "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush." adage.  Had this been a venomous snake, I would have had to agree but, truth be told, I hold these snakes a good bit.  They are docile and quite lovely to have in the gardens.

  I came to notice the snake simply because of the "Critter Neighborhood Watch" group let up a huge ruckus.  Thinking that Bat, the cat, was on the prowl, I slipped outside to shoo him from his hiding spot.  Bat could not be found so I started tending the herbs.  Once again, the blue jays started yelling near the blueberry bushes so, once again, I searched the area.  This time, instead of finding that black cat lurking beneath the bushes, I found my lovely friend in the "feather tree".  Ahh, the sweet thing was merely trying to protect my blueberries from the raiding birds.  (Not the snake's true intention but it sounds nicer than "the snake was trying to eat a bird".)  Son found me talking to the snake and probably assumed that my oldness had finally caught up with me as he could only see I was conversing with a shrub.  Once he came to check on the sanity of his old mom, he, too, was elated to find the snake.  We had just talked about not finding any as of late.

  Rat snakes will eat most anything they can catch which makes them great to have around the place.  They literally keep the place "pest-free".  That being said, it is easy to see why they are always welcome around here and the paraphrased adage somewhat holds true.  A rat snake in the bush is always good even though two in hand would not be bad, either!