I was working around the yard tonight watering plants and tending the guineas when I remembered the zuchini bread I had in the oven. I ran up the back porch and was met face to face with the black snake crawling right up the wall of my house next to the door. Nothing like a black snake on a white house for graphic effect. Or for eliciting the expletive heard round the neighborhood. Of course, I’d forgotten to unlock the back door, so I had to leave the snake and run around to the front door. By the time I got the bread out of the oven and the back door open, the snake had fallen off the house and was coiled on the porch.

I instantly knew where this was headed, or should I say, where he was headed. And sure enough, the second he saw me (must have made quite the impression Tuesday night), he slipped off the porch and right into the crawlspace that is so not secure. I tried to pin him with a two by four, but he had too much momentum and disappeared behind the insulation lining the crawlspace. Like the unwitting dupe of horror films the world over, I followed a large snake into a small, dark, enclosed space. Not sure what I thought I could do in there, but I figured I could assess the situation. Which I did for about .5 seconds—just long enough to see a black tail disappear between rustling yellow batts—before I retreated post-haste.

In truth, I may have willed this creature here to help me. Starlings are nesting in my back porch eaves where there should be a ceiling but isn’t yet. They keep churning out babies and pooping all over my nicely painted deck. I didn’t want to finish the ceiling until after the babies had fledged, but they seem to be coming in rounds. I admit to wishing they’d disappear without me actually having to be the one to do it. Cue the black snake, who’s may just be here to to do me a favor.