Snakes in Winter???

This year in South Dakota, we basically had spring, three nice summer days, skipped fall altogether, and then jumped to winter. No seriously. The other morning, the tree in my back yard had green leaves on it as well as 2 inches of snow. It's been unseasonably cold and yucky out.

Anyway, Zach has been in Colorado elk hunting and he took all the horses but Charlie. So I've been going out to our "country house" and feeding Charlie. On Saturday, after I broke three inches of ice on the tank, I headed to the shed to get some grain. Just as I crawled through the fence to open the shed door, I looked down and saw a snake right in my path! Ackkkkk!!!!!! I screamed and ran into the panels two times before I could get away. I only allowed myself a split second to get a glimpse of the snake who seemed to be just as scared and stunned to see me. He was so cold that when he tried to coil up he looked more like a used rope left out in the rain. I raced back away from the shed and tried to figure out what I was going to do next.

Thoughts rushed through my head. It's 17 degrees out...why wasn't he in a hole somewhere? How was I going to get the grain? How many of his scarey buddies were lurking nearby? Had he been in the shed already (I had been in and out of there several times in the last few days)? What if he headed for the house and decided to curl up in there for the winter?

Of course, I couldn't call for Zach because he was gone. Matt and Lindsey were out of town as well. I had to handle this on my own. So I put on my big girl panties and did what any other real man (or woman) would have done. I drove to Tractor Supply Company and bought a brand new bag of grain. By the time I got back, the bag had ripped and spilled all over in my trunk and then my next fear was that mice might start inhabitating my car. Ya...laugh all you want! But at least Charlie got fed.