Snakes Alive!!
Of all the pitfalls of living in the country, my continual running battle with snakes has to be the most ....ah, stimulating, shall we say? Nothing like the sight of a snake, slithering around your house to get the 'ole heart pumping.
I have learned to identify a few of these unwelcome creatures, sparing the black snakes as much as possible, so that they can scour the premises for rats, mice, and other more sinister species of snake. However, I fear that I shall never be comfortable with ANY of the creepy crawlies...
I can now classify some of my snake episodes, as follows:
1) Scariest snake: This has to be a large rattlesnake that I killed when my son Todd was about, hum, four? 1978? We had stopped up at the barn to check something in the garden, I think, and the snake came creeping down the hill from that very garden, slithering toward my pick up truck. I think he was watching my little beagle so intently that he didn't notice me. He was heading for the barn.
I didn't know what he was at the time, but he looked plenty ominous, and I was used to killing snakes with a shovel or hoe -- so I came up behind him and rammed the shovel down right behind his head, hard. As I chopped, I analyzed the problem. "Mm.." I wondered. "What kind of snake is this?" (Chop, chop) "Triangular head." (Chop, Chop) "Thick body." (Chop, chop) "Slanted eyes." (Chop, chop) "RATTLES!!! (CHOP, CHOP, CHOP, CHOP, CHOP!!!!) I chopped until there was nothing left of the head, and then I stood and shook....and shook...and shook...
This was before the age of cell phones, so I just stood and shook until my husband came back from wherever he was... When he saw the snake, he was very impressed, and he counted nine rattles and a button. He chopped off the rattles and hung them in the barn.
2) Most determined snake: This was a black snake which was determined to get to a nest of baby barn swallows whose mother was raising them on the back porch light. I was perfectly willing to let the snake go on its way, but I did not want it on the back porch. Ordinarily, a black snake will just retreat when confronted, but this one fought back and acted like a rattler, so it met the same fate as a rattler. I chopped it up in tiny pieces.
3) Most creative snake: Actually there are two black snakes in this catagory. One made its way up to look in the window of the back door, peering in while my son Todd was watching cartoons. I don't remember what happened to that snake, but I don't think it made it out of the vicinity alive. The other one was even more colorful, as it slithered its way up a lawn chair and from there over an old dilapidated desk to peer into my bow window in the living room. My two cats were highly alarmed and promptly did a silly shadow boxing routine through the window with the snake. I believe that snake may have bitten the dust when it, too, went after yet another nest of baby birds on the back porch the next day, though I believe these birds were phoebes, instead of barn swallows...
4) Most recent snake: I wrote about this one in my NSC column a couple of weeks ago. This narrative will be done in shorthand, as my arms are tired, and I'm getting creeped out by this subject:
7 p.m. Madeline happily blogging on Statesman site. Bark, bark, bark: "Mom-come-look-this-is-serious." I look out bow window. Dogs barking at the ground. Drat! Snake! Shovel? Hoe? Nope, 4.10 shotgun, as son has instructed. Put on tall boots, get shotgun and 3 shells, go out and check. Yep. Rattlesnake. Dogs run away. Me and snake eye to eye. Bam! Bam! Bam! Snake undamaged. Drat! Back in house, clomp, clomp. (Wait here, snake.) Five more shells. Bam, bam, bam! Snake still undamaged. Maybe I should look through the sights. Clomp, clomp - more shells. Snake almost to goat pen. Take aim. Bam! Snake flies up in air. Whoopee!! Bam! Snake flies up in air again! Wheeee! Bam, Bam, Bam! Snake full of holes, appears dead, but could be playing possum. Clomp, clomp! Get kaiser blade. Chop, chop, chop! Head is off. Snake certifiably dead.
Ahhhhh!!!
Madeline posts next blog from jail on charge of killing endangered species......
Life in the country.....Gotta love it!
Comments
Respond to this blog
Posting a comment requires free registration:
- If you already have an account, follow this link to login
- Otherwise, follow this link to register
Actually, I called a friend - my daughter's ex-boyfriend - after I killed the last snake, and he came out to retrieve it for eating purposes. However, I had shot it full of too many holes, so he just saved it to scare friends and family!
Those two "EX's" would have gotten along famously, I feel sure!
A while back, a neighbor repeated the old rumor that the Conservation Dept. had re-introduced rattlesnakes into Missouri, but I checked on this, and it's not true. They've always been here.
Gee, I could write my stories from the brig! How exciting is that?? All my bloggers could come to the jail and march outside with signs!! "Free our blogger!" "Down with the Department of Conservation!"
I like it!!
I'm like that a lot...
Maybe some of the Bloomfield crowd will see your question and come up with an answer. I had in laws in Dexter by the name of Ezell (one z), but my sister-in-law, Betty Ezell, died recently. Are you sure your teacher's name was Ezzell?
I love to go to a restaurant - even as close as Cape - and give my last name to the people taking names. Tickles me when they try to pronounce it!!!
I had a seventh grade history teacher named DeJarnett. Seems to me that she wasn't related. She was TOUGH!
Thanks for the insight on Mrs. Ezzell.
Did you get that, Rusty Nail?
Friday a neighbor came in to eat at the senior center with us, and he said that he and his wife saw what had to be a nine-foot rattlesnake in the woods out our way. He said, "It was this big around!" And, I swear, he put his hands in a 10-inch diameter circle! I sure I don't meet that critter out here in my yard! All the more reason to wear tall boots in the woods.
I think I need to learn to shoot a bigger gun.....!