Animal whisperer

My second daughter has a gift or talent, if you will. She loves animals, big or small. She gets a thrill seeing horses when we take a ride in the car and heaven forbid, we ever go to the pound, she would leave with every animal they had. The other day, our nieghbors had a yard sale and the kids searched high and low for coins, so they could buy themselves a treasure. E came and sadly told me she just didn't even have a dollar to her name. I thought welcome to my world, honey, but said maybe she could have the coins by the t.v. I actually found a roll of nickels and gave it to her, watching her eyes light up at all the money I had found. :) She ran on down the street to barter for something 'really cool'.

Later, the door burst open and E came in with a bunch of 'equipment' that was labeled 'reptile cage'. The cage and heat lamp (yes, a heat lamp) were about 10 dollars but E marched up to my neighbor's friend (who was selling the cage), waved the roll of nickels at her and asked her if she knew how much money she had. The lady guessed $2? E said, that's right and it's all yours! My neighbor's son, who is S's age grabbed the light and E grabbed the cage and before the lady could say anything, they left with their loot. By the way, my neighbor was in the background watching this and was laughing her head off.

After watching E tote this glass cage around the house, looking for suitable places to stash it, I told her to go put it outside before I lost it. She looked at me and said "How could you lose it? I'm carrying it." Just take it outside, please! Within 10 minutes (seriously) she had found TWO garden snakes, 3 grasshoppers and a praying mantis. She came in and asked what else snakes eat. I was on the computer and googled it. Don't we live in an amazing time? Don't know the answer? Google it!
Anyway, we found out the snakes can eat earth worms or baby mice, which are found at any pet store! I said "Earthworms are your only bet, cause you can bet I am not going to the store to buy mice!!"

Yesterday morning, the dog was going crazy outside, so I went to see what Patches was so worried about. There was a mouse in one of our window wells. When the kids got home from school, I was on the phone with my husband, telling him about the mouse. E shot outside, put gloves on and caught the thing before I could even tell her not to touch it. She was going to kill it, put it in the freezer then feed it to the snakes. I opted for no on this one and told her to put the yucky mouse into the snake cage. Eww...snakes and mice...What am I doing?? E asked me what was wrong with the mouse, it was so cute!! All I could do was shiver.