Rats,Bugs, and Snakes.....Oh my

I'm living in the creepy crawly land of OZ. I mean I have Dorothy aka Bella living here and her ruby slippers. But instead of Lions we have Rats and instead of Tigers we have bugs and instead of Bears.....guess what we have? Snakes. I arrived home today to my mother being here and she's sweeping the leaves off my back porch (don't you just love moms....always trying to help) and she's sweeping away and sees what she thinks might be shed snake skin. She calls me outside to check it out and YES, it is shed snake skin. I shudder with disgust I tell ya. I also happen to notice that my dog is barking grand spastically but this in itself is no cause for great alarm since she barks at the wind blowing. She barks at birds, squirrels, other dogs, leaves falling. My mom says she has been barking for the last 10-15 minutes straight. That's not too uncommon. She onced barked at a beetle bug for a few hours. I go back inside and just go about my business. Seconds later she calls me out again and asks what in the world is it that Sophie is barking at because she sees something weird looking. I go back out to take a look and get as close as I can to see, because she's in wet grass with mud all over, and I realize it is more snake skin. And not just a little bit but a whole roll of it all bunched up together and this skin is huge. The snake must have literally slithered right out of its skin. It's bizarre. I also notice more skin on the pile of wood right by the fence. You know....the kind of pile of wood that would be a perfect place for a snake to hide. Aagghh.... We have a snake in our back yard! Good dog Sophie! Poor dog is trying to tell us about the snake. I will never make fun of you again for barking at the wind. Anyway now I guess we have snake's. My dad came over, but to his major disappointment, did not find anything. He was so excited he thought he was going to get to kill him a snake. He did however stretch out the skin and put them all together and figured it must be about a 5-6 foot snake and it's about as round as a baseball. Yikes...I sure do thank GOD we did not discover this serpent any other way. I mean the girls play back there all the time! I will be sure to post a picture of the skin just in case some of you out there might not believe this to be true. Hahaha....that cracks me up.