Full Moon of Misfortune

I think this is #5 now, right? Yes, they are beautiful. Yes, I'm getting tired of killing them . I'm beginning to picture the mine, on our property, with thousands of pit vipers slithering around in there. I'm thinking that there are thousands of them looking for the ones we have killed. They take a head count and one says, "Joe's missing, Bill, you go out tonight and see if you can find him."
I have had dreams where I walk outside and there are hundreds of snakes, everywhere. I'm trying not to step on them and they never bite. They aren't paying any attention to me. I'm tip-toeing around them trying to get through the mass of snakes and then I step on one and it rears up...., looks at me, rattles it's tail ..., and I wake up. I never get bit in my dreams and there are different kinds of snakes, not just rattlers. Some of them are non- venomous, harmless garden snakes and some are black.

Last night I heard Maggie barking, continuously, in the area near the goat house. It's always a different bark when it's a snake. We both went out on to the back porch and called Maggie. She wouldn't come to us. I held Moke while the prospector went out across the concrete and over to the corner of the garage to find Maggie. We could hear the snake. When my brain focused on the sound, I looked down beside the wall of the house and there it was. Angry and coiled. My husband walked right by the snake and didn't even see it. He's so lucky sometimes. So, now we both had a dog in hand and the prospector yelled "Get your gun." All Moke wants to do is get at the snake. Crazy dog..
I closed the screened door and went for my hand gun in the bedroom. When I got to the back door again, my husband was on the porch with Maggie. I said " Why did you do that? You had to walk by the snake again." and all he said was, "Please take the dogs in the house." and took the pistol from me. I closed the door this time and waited for him to shoot. One shot was fired. It was a clean shot to the head. Another Rattler was dead. The dogs ran to our bedroom and hid. They don't like gunfire.
The snake was big; at least 3 or4 ft. long and had 12 rattles and he was beautiful. The prospector said that he didn't see the snake when he first went out to Maggie and then realized he had walked right by it, but in order to get her in the house he had to walk back up onto the porch again. I was going to tell him that he could have put her in the garage, but realized that he was upset and it probably wasn't necessary to tell him what he could have done, after the fact. He went and got the big bucket, lifted the snake into it and walk into the garage.
We watched the Olympics until Midnight because we were so hyped up. Even then we had a hard time getting to sleep. When I finally fell asleep I didn't dream of snakes. I dreamed about the goats. They were dancing and I think they were singing, (I'm not sure.) They seemed happy.
It was a full moon last night and Murphy wasn't dancing.

I'm so sorry snake.