I hope Cactus Jon is proud of me.

We were moving stuff out of the old house when I spotted the snake on the garage door step. At some point, I realized that the snake wanted to move, but it could not. The lower part of its body was stuck to some adhesive left behind from tape used to fasten down a now-removed extension cord. In order to figure all this out, I had to get closer to the snake. The snake did not approve of my closeness. It took a striking pose and stuck its forked tongue out at me. That's what snakes do when threatened. Fair enough.

How to get the snake free? I mean, I couldn't just leave it stuck there to die. I grabbed a kind of shovel with a meter-plus handle. The goal was to scrape the adhesive from the concrete without damaging the snake. I believe I was quite successful. The shovel stayed under the adhesive.

Upon removing the adhesive, I got the snake on the shovel blade. I took it over to an empty house's overgrown yard, where I thought the snake would slither right off into the grass. But slither off it could not because the adhesive was still snuck to the snake and now to the shovel blade as well. But with just a bit of shaking and some helpful thrashing by the snake, free at last it was, and it quite eagerly disappeared into the tall grass. I admit that there may have been a small amount of adhesive still stuck to the snake, but I expect it to wear off quickly, kind of like the way glue and paint and such wears off your fingers after a while.

Poisonous, deadly snake? Possibly. Or it could have been completely harmless to humans. At any rate, it eats critters, which are myriad and diverse here. I am not about to upset the natural balance. Go in peace, snake. I don't regret reading D.H. Lawrence's "Snake" poem. And there's always the possibility of being reincarnated as a snake. Something to consider. I'm just saying. But most of all, there's that good old nature boy, Cactus Jon. I hope you're proud of me.

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