It was either 3 or 4 years ago that Charles first noticed a baby watersnake poking his teeny head out of our goldfish pond.  Being the nature boy that he is, he just casually grabbed a long stick with a hump on one end, slipped it underneath the snake's belly, and in one fluid motion pulled the snake out of the pond and flipped him over the fence into the creek that runs along the back of our property.  He figured that would be the last time we'd see that snake, but he figured wrong.

Apparently, our little pond is that snake's very favorite place in the world to be.  Ever since then, it has become something that Charles just knows he needs to do every week or two - go fling the snake out of the pond.  During the winter, we don't see the snake at all, but he obviously doesn't hibernate far away, because every spring he's back, only bigger.

On Monday, Charles tossed him over the fence for the hundredth time, but this time, the snake gave Charles a dirty look and turned around to come right back to the pond.  Charles had a hard time getting the stick back underneath him because he was moving so fast, and he made it back into the pond and stayed underwater until Charles got tired of waiting for him and gave up.  Since then, we've been able to see his head poke the surface from time to time, but if we dare take a step in his direction and he spots us, he darts back to the bottom again.  Also, we aren't able to find two of our goldfish, so we figure he finally got 'em, because they were so big that he probably wasn't fast enough to get them until he grew bigger himself.   

Oh, well.  Charles did his best to keep those fish safe for as long as he could.  I didn't really do anything for them myself except toss food into the water, because while I'm not particularly afraid of snakes, I'm not a confident snake wrangler, either.  Anyway, they were feeder fish that we got at PetsMart for something like 15 cents each, and they were able to grow as large as koi, so I guess we should just feel good that they lived a whole lot longer than they would have otherwise.  That's life at the bottom of the food chain.

This is a picture of the snake from a year and half ago - he's much bigger now: