Rattlesnake

Yesterday evening Paul and I were shocked by the cry of "SNAKE" from Malachi. It turns out he heard, and found, a large rattlesnake right outside the back steps. One coil and the rattle were sticking out from under the house. If I had been thinking straight I would have gotten a picture but I was too disturbed by the size of it. The cats thought it was something interesting to play with and it took us throwing pieces of bricks at them to get them well away from the area. Having never been this close to one I was just a tad bit freaked out and couldn't think of anything to kill it with. Paul grabbed the digging bar which was handy and squished the coil but couldn't actually cut through the skin. It was really unhappy and slithered the rest of the way under the house. We blocked up all the holes but this morning we heard it in the horse pen so it obviously got out. We looked but couldn't find it so I'm hoping it kept going through the horse pen and off the property. We have reinforced the importance of watching the ground as you walk and taking a walking stick with you if you must go through tall weeds and brush.