When I was young, my brother and I used to catch creepy-crawler-critters and keep them as pets. Yes, I know.  Most kids have dogs, cats, goldfish, parakeets ... we had caterpillars, beetles, Daddy-Long-Leg and trap-door spiders, King snakes, stink-bugs, tapeworms (kidding ... we didn't really have tapeworms. I think). 

We would keep these critters in a little red wagon filled with dirt, toss them dried up dead flies or wilted dandelions, whatever we thought they should be eating.  None of these critters ever scared me (except for the Potato Bugs. I. Hate. Potato. Bugs.) and even as an adult, creepy-crawlers (except Potato Bugs. I. Still. Hate. Potato. Bugs.) have never been a problem for me.

Until now.

It must be the season for critters here in Texas.  We sure didn't have this many last summer ... of course, we didn't have any water last summer, either.  You would think that going months without water would kill all the vermin, spiders, snakes, worms, wigglies and such.

You would be wrong.  They appear to have returned.  With a vengeance.

Not only have I been bit on the butt by the Brown Recluse, which I admit is the worst that's happened to me physically, the shock value of reaching into the pool skimmer and pulling out a snake along with the dead flowers, came in a close second.

Granted, it was only a tiny garden snake.  It was still not something you expect in your pool.

We also have a mouse living in the garage which is actually better than the rat that was living in the fountain last summer, except that this mouse has a habit of scaring that cute-and-cuddly-seventy-pound-puppy ...

Who, as she was running through the ivy and bushes in the front yard yesterday while we were examining an icky-web-like-stuff-known-as-web-worms covering (and killing) one of our trees, managed to come nose to stinger with a hornets nest.  Actually, she came butt to stinger ... twice.

Poor baby. She was miserable all night.  Fortunately, she won't have to go to the doctor every day or have it cut open and packed and re-packed every day for two weeks or have one of those "touch-me-again-and-you-die" antibiotic shots.

Nope.  Stingers go away fairly quickly.

But, I feel her pain. Really. I do.