The Snake

Today was a very interesting day.  As a lot of my friends and family know I hate snakes and am afraid of them, only because I don't know which ones are poisonous and which ones are not, outside of the Rattlesnake and maybe one or two other, I just am not good at identifying them, so my policy for safety has been to kill them.  I know this is not the best policy because some snakes are good snakes some eat the bad snakes.
But today I had been weeding in the garden and had just finished and came around to the front with my granddaughters Dee Dee and Ci Ci and what did I see?  A big black snake (with some kind of faint diamond pattern on its back) which was about 4-5 feet long.  I am standing there going oh no, I have to protect my granddaughters from this thing.  I did not have anything to kill it with so I walked over and stepped on its head and grabbed its tail then moved my foot up enough to grab close to its head.  Then while I was holding it it looked like it wanted to bite me so I let go of its head and flung it far away in the yard away from the girls.  In the process while it whirled around, its tail hit my arm and took some skin with it. All the while this was going on Ci Ci is telling me not to kill the snake, then she starts laughing. This is coming from the girl that is petrified of bugs. Then I find out later when Berek comes in that they had a pet snake in Illinois (that figures).
I still can't believe I picked up a snake (I had garden gloves on).  If someone had asked me to even though it was non-poisonous I would have told them where to go (a hot and not so nice place). I was freaking out about it for some time later.

Where the snake hit me as it was being flung.