Today, we had some hired help doing the yard work. When the guy was about halfway finished mowing the back yard, he comes around front to ring the door bell. When I answer the door, he tells me with a very deeply concerned expression that he's just killed a snake in the back yard.



I'm immediately just as deeply concerned, but I know right away it's not for the same reasons. I tried not to get mad at him. He saw the kids' bikes and dog house, and the guy only knows what society teaches about snakes. Snakes = danger to unsuspecting kids. So he truly thought he was doing the right thing to kill the snake he'd found in our back yard. I had to just keep telling myself that...over and over.

I asked to see it. He said, "Of course, it's still back there, but you won't be able to recognize it without a head."



Of course I went to see it anyhow. He'd taken one of our garden hoes and driven it so deeply across the neck that the head had just...disappeared...driven into the ground, I guess. I never did see the head...just the body that was left.

It wasn't even a snake. It was a beautiful dark green Glass Lizard. So harmless. So beautiful.

It's really neat to know that I have Glass Lizards in the back yard. But I'm so sad that the little creature had to die just because it looked like a snake.