Tuesday, May 31, 2011

settling in.

for the second time now. 

Canada has been an adventure so far, though one I would rather not repeat. From now on I would like to take trips to the mountains, enjoy our backyard, and bask in the beautiful weather... vs. extended hotel stays, boxes to unpack (still), and a rattlesnake scare. 

God has been good to us, however (as He always is.), and we are safely back in our house. An expert told us he was completely certain that there was never a snake in this house. We feel good about how he searched the place. He had a solid system and looked in the obscurest of places. And, just to cover human error we did a couple extra things. One, snake guy Dave told us to do just to ease our minds: heated the house up and covered the floors with flour and moldy beer cans, since we don't drink soda and couldn't find any used soda cans in a pinch! Secondly, we prayed over the house, which does more than anything, I believe. I felt peace in our house as we prayed. 

Story goes... Somehow we dragged a rattlesnake tail with us from Texas, potentially on a piece of used furniture we bought there. Imagining, however, that there was a rattlesnake in our house at all was both frightening and something we never thought we'd have to worry about in Canada. And did I mention the tail belonged to an Eastern Diamondback, the largest of all rattlesnakes? Snake guy Dave was looking for a 6 foot couple inch around snake, based on the tail. It's possible that we never had a a rattlesnake in any of our houses at all, it's also possible that it came to visit our old full-of-holes house in the country and decided to then leave. We really weren't thinking when we moved there :) but it was a good little house. Anyway, whatever happened, God protected us. Sometimes not knowing is hard, though, and has been an interesting test of our faith. We did the best we knew how, and must trust God for the rest. By the way, do you know how hard it is to find a snake expert in Canada? Especially rattlesnakes? Even though the Prairie Rattler is said to be in southern Saskatchewan, we could not find anyone in the province qualified to come help us remove a potential snake. Snake guy Dave drove about 8 hours from near Calgary, and works at a place called Reptile World, so we were happy with his experience :) He came in with long poles of various sorts and a net, and there was nothing we wanted more than to bag us a snake! But it's over now, and even though we don't have any cool pictures to show you, Ron and I won't be forgetting the things we've learned along the way... 

This week it is my mission to get/sort/post photos for you all. I have many blog entries worth, so hopefully you will enjoy them at your leisure. It is also my mission to harvest the rhubarb, get close to done unpacking, and take some long walks with James.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find it hilarious that since you don't drink soda, you had to make do with beer cans!
Mom

Joanna Goodman said...

haha! you're right Mom, that does sound funny!! I should clarify that the beer cans were all we could get from the city to help out :)

Anonymous said...

Oh Joanna, how I love to read your stories:) !!! You are truly gifted at writing. Thank you ! I thank and praise God for you. Hug the "boys" for me. Much, much love to you all. Mama G.