There's a WHAT in my wall?!?

So, Shane has begun our kitchen/dining room remodeling project. For the last several days, he has come home after work and has been ripping out panelling, walls, studs, carpet....and then putting up studs for new walls....etc.

Yesterday, he was taking out a piece of panelling from one of the exterior walls in our back room (the one that is being used for storage right now) and all of a sudden, I hear...."Oh boy....I'm scared! I'm scared!" in this weird voice that Shane doesn't use very often. I didn't really know WHAT was going on, but thought he was joking or something....so I went around the corner and asked him what was wrong. Of course, who follows me? Colin, with Cameron right behind him. (Ethan was in my arms.)

When I get to Shane, he had this horrified look on his face, and I immediately knew at that point that something was REALLY wrong. I said to him, "What's the matter?" And he said, "Get the kids back!" I looked around the corner into the back room, and looked up (in the direction that he was already looking) to find what was almost the unthinkable--a SNAKE had made it's home in our wall!!

No, I am not kidding.

We apparently have been housing a giant (by my terms, anyway) snake inside our wall for who knows how long! He was just sitting up there, all comfy cozy, right on top of the insulation in the wall, not seemingly bothered at all that we had just torn into his home.

Talk about grossed out.

Neither one of us knew WHAT on earth to do. I ran down with the boys and put them in their room, and told them not to come out until I said that it was okay...and then proceeded to call animal control (however, it was past their hours, and I got the answering machine, with a message saying they do not pick up stray animals after hours. Great.)

I had no clue what to do from there, so I called across the street to my neighbor, hoping that she would be able to tell me who to call. Instead, she says to me, "Tom's afraid of snakes....I'll be right over." She proceeded to grab some gardening tools, and came right over to help with the process of getting rid of this snake. She said that it was a black king snake, and not poisonous, but it could still bite.

So, for the next several minutes, she and Shane devised a plan, and they were able to get the snake onto the ground. Sherry held the snake down with a garden hoe while Shane chopped it's head off (or tried--apparently, snake skin is pretty thick and tough.)

He never got the head really off, however. Once the snake was "dead", Sherry picked it up and carried it into the field behind our house to dispose of it, saying an animal would eat it in the next couple of days.

After a few minutes, Sherry left, and Shane went to check on the snake...to find it still very much alive. So, he really did chop the head off of it that time, and then measured (as you can see in the photos.) It was over 4 ft. long, without the head!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT??

I mean, seriously, I never would have thought in a million years that something like that would happen! But, that's our story of our most eventful remodeling incident to date!!