Frank's OK...that snake soon won't be.

From Steve:

I picked Frank up from his normal Vet's office yesterday after work. Dr. LaPierre and I had a sit down to talk about what we needed to watch out for for the next few days. He said that Frank was doing alot better, although the swelling on his leg and right side seemed to be hanging around. If that doesn't go down in the next few days, we may have to have it drained.

I brought Frank by the barn since Crystal had to work late so that her and Elaine could see that he was doing better. After some hugs and kisses from Mom & Grandma, Frank and I were on our way back home. Once out of the car back at the house, our neighbor Jim came by to check on Frank. For the first time since the incident, I saw Frank's tail (if you can call his nub a tail) wag when he saw Jim. This was a huge relief to me, as this was really the first semblence of his personality coming back from his ordeal.

I made sure that Frank was resting comfortably at his favorite spot; the cold tile of the bathroom floor over the AC vent, and then it was on.

Jim and I proceeded to located the suspected grouping of holes in the ground near the apple tree in our back yard. Years ago, the back part of my yard was a part of a gulley that drained down to the lake behind our house. When our house was being build, they filled the gulley to level the lot. Because they ran out of fill dirt, the geniuses used garbage and stumps to help fill the hole. Over the years as water runs off our property, it finds its way through the nooks and crannies of those old stumps and makes little holes that sometimes surface near the apple tree. A perfect home for snakes and all other sorts of undesireables.

JIm brought over some smoke bombs (what the hell does a 70 year old man need with smoke bombs?). At his instruction, I doused some old T-shirts with oil and jammed them down the holes with the handle of a shovel. Next, I threw in the smoke bombs. To top off our creation, we poured about 3 gallons of gasoline into the holes and lit it.

It looked like we had opened up the gateway to hell.

The explosion sounded like a large "thump" underground. Immediately after that thump, flames as tall as me shot out from the holes. Fire erupted from other holes that we didn't know existed, including one right under Jim's feet prompting the old man to bolt faster than Carl Lewis out of the way.

They burned fow awhile, and nothing slithered, crawled, or scurried out. If anything was alive down there, it wasn't now.

After hell's fury subsided, we dumped the 320 pounds of concrete that I had laying around down the holes. Hopefully Tropical storm Hanna will help the mortar mix to find it's way to all of the little passageways under our yard.

At Present:

Well, Frank just hopped out of bed. He trotted in here to see if Santa had brought him any surprises in his food bowl. He hasn't expressed any interest in food since he's been home, this must be a good sign. I fixed him some of his wet food and mixed in his medication. He ate it all!

Crystal is at the barn already, getting ready for the wedding and reception tonight. Frank is watching me type away and wondering when we are going to go for a ride.

He's going to be OK. That snake will die.

To be continued........