Needed: A Pied Piper of Snakes

I don’t like snakes. 

Period.

All snakes terrify me.  Even if they are small and harmless, I am beyond phobic. 

I cannot even stand to look at them on television or in a book.  I absolutely must  look away or close my eyes.   If you don’t like snakes either, I can assure you,  you will NOT be seeing any pictures of snakes here on my blog.

Now that you know about my intense fear of snakes,  do you want to guess who  had the first snake encounter at the  Hooterville house?

Yep.   I saw it  slither right up and peer  in the bay window of the family room. 

I swear I heard it hiss, “Welcome to life in the country, city girl!”

As soon as I saw it  I screamed.

Then I ran to another room and cried, shook like a leaf and had heart palpitations.

My husband ran outside and pulled the “harmless black snake” off the window.  I’m sure he  must have been thinking to himself, “Damn!  Damn! Damn!  I’ll never get her to move here now!” 

Everybody says, “Oh, once you get everything mowed and the overgrowth cleared out, you won’t have  snakes anymore.

Can I get that in writing?

So put your snake-proof boots on because we’re going outside.   This might be your only chance to see the Hooterville property….since I don’t plan to spend  much time outdoors after my snake encounter.

The house in Hooterville sits on  a little over 30 acres.  The tax appraiser’s records indicate there are just over 28.5 acres and an additional 2 acres of “low lands.” 

 

This aerial photograph shows the property boundaries within the heavy black lines.

 

There are a few neighbors to the north but the properties to the east, west and south are either wooded or used for agriculture.

 

Here’s a zoomed in view that shows the house, barns and there’s even a pond.

 

As I mentioned before, this is a foreclosure property and it has been vacant for almost a year.  As you can see in the above photo, only a little over  half  the property has been cleared but after being unattended for so long, it is all quite overgrown now.

Let’s jump in the truck and drive around the property.

 

This is the realtor’s photo of the main barn before the vegetation got so out of control.

 

It has a nice wide concrete center aisle and 8 stalls. 

This is how it is looking now.  The grass is so long, it is laying over on it’s side.  But this looks manicured compared to what you will see toward the end of this post!

 

There are 2 other small primitive barns that need sprucing up  before they will be usable.

 

These are the strawberry fields on the west side of the property.

 

Now we are heading south to the wooded area of the property.  My husband was able to track down the former owner and he said that in addition to the pond,  there is  a  little stream back in the woods.  He also told my husband  there is/was a road that had been cut through there too.  If it can be found and cleared again, it might make a nice trail for our borders to ride their horses.

 

As we got further south, the photo below is  what we had to drive through!  This  was taken sitting high up in the truck.  (You don’t really think this sissy city girl  would get out in this to take a picture, do you?) 

The vegetation was as tall as the truck and was kind of scary!  Quite honestly,  I have some serious concerns about my husband’s safety when he starts clearing out this mess.  Heaven only knows that dangers lurk in all of this overgrowth!  To me, this is far more scary than any of the dangers he might have come face to face with  in all  the  years he has worked  in law enforcement.  Thank goodness he knows how to use a gun.

 

This is the pond.  It looks like it is pretty big but again, until all the overgrowth is cleared, it’s hard to tell.   Rumor has it there are alligators in it. 

Great.

 

Now we are heading back toward the house and this is the orange grove on the east side of the property. 

 

This is the view out one of the back bedroom windows.  Can you see the grape arbor on the right side of the photo?  (Some of these photos might enlarge if you click on them.)

 

Well, that’s all of  the Hooterville House Tour for now.

The closing has been moved up to October 30th.   Yikes! That’s just two weeks away!   Shortly thereafter, all the hard work will begin so I hope you will check back periodically to see our progress.