snake you, snake you, snake you very much!

This last weekend we were up in Idaho for grandpa Murdock's funeral. As we pulled into the drive way Saturday night i saw a snake! Even though we were in the car i lifted my leg and yelled snake! I told Blake to back up and look at it. Sure enough there it was, trying really hard to cross the driveway. It was a rattle snake, no doubt about it. You could see the rattle on the tail. Blake backed up far enough so he could use the light from the headlights. And got out of the car and headed for the garage to get the shovel. Yes crazy, i know. As soon as Blake was out of the car the boys yelled "lock the doors!" (I'm not sure how that was going to help or why they thought they should lock the doors--the snake wasn't going to come open the door in the first place.) So there we are the boys and i in the car watching Blake go after this snake with the shovel. Adrenaline pumping and all! The snake only coiled up once and Blake was able to get it once it was trying to slither away! As Blake was getting the rattle snake we saw a second snake on the front lawn! YEAH I know FREAKY! So i quickly pulled the car into the driveway and told the boys to go into the house and just stay inside. The boys ran into the house and watched from the front window, yelling from time to time. I ran upstairs to get our BB gun (yeah, hind site being what it is, that wasn't going to work). I got back outside as Blake tried to load the BB gun with the pellets (hands shaking like crazy) we decided the other snake was gone. It took off as soon as we saw it. So Blake finished taking care of removing the snake from the front yard and i got the boys in bed.
(this picture is totally zoomed in--you can kinda see an ant by the tail. I just wanted the picture of the tail.)
By the time Blake had come back in and said good night to the boys i think our adrenaline rush had finally subsided. My theory of the evening being too cool for the snakes to be out went out the window as we discussed the event. Because we hadn't really eaten dinner we had our usual bowl of cold cereal when we don't want to fix anything and it's late. And we cleaned up a little bit more from our trip and then as we were heading up the stairs Blake said he wished he would have been able to get that second snake instead now he was going to just worry about it being out there. As he was saying this i went to the front window and was looking around. And low and behold there on the drive way was the second snake. We had just finished discussing that running over the snake with the car would have been the easier/safer way to go about getting rid of it. So i went and got in the car and ran over the snake. As i backed up further to again use the headlights for lighting Blake got closer to see if i had gotten it good enough to kill it. And it was a bull snake (or gopher snake). We had read and heard that those are good snakes to have around cause they will kill the rattle snakes and here we are killing it. I know, kill first, ask questions later wasn't the smartest way to go about it, but when i see a snake after seeing a rattle snake there is too much adrenaline pumping to pause and check the snake out! The bull snake wasn't as big as the rattle snake and we have decided that the bull snake must have been after the rattle snake in the first place. So to the bull snake that is decaying in the dirt not to far from here, I am sorry.
(the second picture here is the bull snake)