Another snake story

[Geno44]

Since Faulkner recently brought up the topic of snakes I have a snake story. Many years ago I was raising a few Quarter Horses. I went out to the barn in the middle of the night to check on a young mare that had just foaled. Hanging from the rafter was a five foot black snake and I was concerned it might drop into the stall and spook the mare causing her to step on the new foal. I got an 8 foot 1x2 and drove a fence staple in the end. I passed a loop of bailing twine through the staple and gently looped it around the neck of the snake. He (maybe she) pulled a little and I pulled a little and got it down from the rafter. I gripped it behind the head and walked it out to the property line and set it loose. It seemed pretty docile. I remember at the time hoping that it didn't beat me back to the barn. Knowing the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes is obviously important when dealing with them.

[Rustyt1953]

Our last house had a creek running through the property. One of our cats, Sophie, lived to hunt and would often deposit her presents on the back deck to show us.

One afternoon I was sitting in the family room which adjoined the open kitchen in which Ruthie was starting dinner. I heard a familiar scratching on the glass door and looked down to see Sophie with a young Garter snake wrapped and writhing around her head. I did the only thing a sensitive husband could do. I got up and wordlessly let Sophie in.

15 seconds later the air raid siren went off and Ruthie almost punctured my eardrums.

I ate at the pub that night.

[lihpster]

One of my dad's buddies remarried in his 40's for the 5th? time. She came with adult children including an engaged daughter. Someone decided a bonding camping trip with some of the soon to be SILs friends was a good idea. Might have been if they had known anything about my dad's friend. Especially 2 important facts. He's deathly afraid of snakes, and he's ALWAYS armed. Ex-cop, head of security for a ski resort, they should have guessed the second part. Rubber snake in sleeping bag. He goes to bed early. They're waiting for screams from his tent. Instead, they get 5 .38 rounds going off. Then nothing. Then, without saying a word he comes out of his tent, dragging a down sleeping bag trailing feathers, goes over to the future SILs tent throws it in, grabs the SIL's bag and goes back to his tent. The next morning he packed up at first light and left. The relationship went downhill from there.

[4barrel]

There was a big one in my drive last week.

[old bear]

I ate at the pub that night.

Now the real question is, how many nights did you sleep in your recliner?

[Rustyt1953]

Originally Posted by old bear

Now the real question is, how many nights did you sleep in your recliner?

That snake has become like a fish. Every time Ruthie tells the story the snake gets bigger. It has gone from a foot to a sandworm from Arrakis.

[Onomea]

A few years ago, we were returning from a walk when my wife noticed a snake climbing our neighbor's garden wall:





I thought it interesting how the snake used the cracks in the wall to climb.

[LoboGunLeather]

Snake season here in southern Colorado. Our pleasant and peaceful retirement spot is about 200 feet from the city limits and 20 miles of open prairie, complete with mice, packrats, assorted vermin, and a thriving population of prairie rattlesnakes.

I am perfectly happy to leave them alone, and my fondest wish is that they will leave us alone. Unfortunately, several times every year I find rattlesnakes on my patio, in my garage, crossing the driveway, or otherwise trespassing within a few feet of those areas I like to use on a regular basis.

I keep a rake and garden shovel handy. Our landscape maintenance contractor swears by his weed-eater and zero-turn lawn mowers.

Over the past 25 years or so I have known several local people who have been bitten by rattlers, including one man who had to have his foot amputated due to necrosis.

[goatsnguns]

One night a couple of summers ago, we heard a horrible screeching coming from our Umbrella Cockatoo who was outside in her summer cage. I rushed out side to check her out and found a 5 foot black snake coiled around her. I was able to pull it off and dispatch it. I usually do not kill non poisenous snakes but it was midnight and I was not dressed for a hike down to the creek. I know these guys eat rats & mice but a full grown Cockatoo with a big beak??

[S-W4EVER]

Originally Posted by goatsnguns

One night a couple of summers ago, we heard a horrible screeching coming from our Umbrella Cockatoo who was outside in her summer cage. I rushed out side to check her out and found a 5 foot black snake coiled around her. I was able to pull it off and dispatch it. I usually do not kill non poisenous snakes but it was midnight and I was not dressed for a hike down to the creek. I know these guys eat rats & mice but a full grown Cockatoo with a big beak??

I woulda done the same thing. No one gets away with trying to hurt my family.

[Beemerguy53]

A couple of mornings ago, I left for work only to find a large snake stretched across the width of my car, right at the back end of the hood.

Yes, you guessed it...

It was a windshield viper...

[lihpster]

Originally Posted by Beemerguy53

A couple of mornings ago, I left for work only to find a large snake stretched across the width of my car, right at the back end of the hood.

Yes, you guessed it...

It was a windshield viper...

I knew this guy that told bad snake jokes. He was a smart asp.

[soFlaNative]

Back when I worked evening shift a coworker came off rounds pretty shook up saying a he crossed a large snake in the roadway. I reassured him that if any were around they were harmless and definitely more scared of him.
Later I was riding the area he had described and in the faint illumination I could see a long shape stretched in the road. I thought dam that is decent sized so I approached and found that during the day some weatherstripping had peeled loose and blown into the road.

[Greyman50]

Guess was about 40 years ago at a WWII re enactment guys found a garter snake and were trying to figure out how to have fun with it. There was this one guy who thought he was actually an Officer, tried to order everyone around and it was learned he was deathly afraid of snakes. “ Somehow” the snake ended up in this guys sleeping bag( I had Nothing to do with it). That night the “ Officer” guy zipped open his sleeping bad, snake slithered out, he lost it. Lucky we only had blanks for M-1’s, Thompsons and 30 Carbines..LOL

[steelslaver]

I was once camped in an area where there were a few snakes all harmless garter snakes and blue racers. . My late wife was concerned and pestering me. I took a container of salt and went around the perimeter of camp sprinkling salt on the ground telling her a snake would not cross the salted area. It worked fine as I was not bothered by snake worries again until her stupid brother informed her that the salt wouldn't stop a snake. Mostly snakes don't want anymore to do with us than we do with them.

[ACORN]

Originally Posted by lihpster

One of my dad's buddies remarried in his 40's for the 5th? time. She came with adult children including an engaged daughter. Someone decided a bonding camping trip with some of the soon to be SILs friends was a good idea. Might have been if they had known anything about my dad's friend. Especially 2 important facts. He's deathly afraid of snakes, and he's ALWAYS armed. Ex-cop, head of security for a ski resort, they should have guessed the second part. Rubber snake in sleeping bag. He goes to bed early. They're waiting for screams from his tent. Instead, they get 5 .38 rounds going off. Then nothing. Then, without saying a word he comes out of his tent, dragging a down sleeping bag trailing feathers, goes over to the future SILs tent throws it in, grabs the SIL's bag and goes back to his tent. The next morning he packed up at first light and left. The relationship went downhill from there.

Some people have no sense of humor.

[cndrdk]

I'll add to the snake thread with a serious one and one no so serious.
First of all, my wife and I were raised on cattle ranches in New Mexico where snakes (mostly rattle snakes) were far to common, so snakes do not bother us much.
I've been out of law enforcement (retired) too long so I don't know the political correct verbiage to describe people that wander up north from a country south of us where they have a a myth that snakes will not crawl over a railroad rail (because the snake is smart enough to know that they might get hit by a train), therefore, the guys would sometimes sleep inside the tracks to avoid snakes. Well, you can guess the rest of the story, train vs sleeping guys in middle of track, train won.

For a couple of years we had been looking at homes/property outside of the DFW Metroplex, mostly around the Weatherford area west of Ft. Worth. We found an area sort of out in the country that we liked and over the years had looked at several homes there. Our real estate agent had us on an automatic email list and we would get emails occasionally "this house for sale" "this house sold". Anyway, we get an email that a certain house we had looked at before had sold. Couple days later, on a Wednesday, we drove out to the area to just look around. This certain house had several people around, on the roof, etc. We guessed, since it had sold, they were conducting a home inspection. Two days later on Friday morning we get email from real estate agent that the house was back on the market. I called her and she said some people from out of state bought the property (out in the country) and while conducting the home inspection, the lady SAW A SNAKE and the deal was off. We met out agent at the property that afternoon and purchased it.

[Faulkner]

Buzzards are my friends. I took this picture after recently cutting hay, apparently a snake got hit with the hay cutter and the buzzards came along behind to clean up.

[bgrafsr]

When I was stationed at Clark AB, PI in '64 and '65, we had one of the base personnel run over a large snake in the road, when he was driving back onto the Base. He looked back, but didn't see anything in the road, and then he heard a flapping noise coming from the engine compartment.

He stopped at the Guard Shack and told the AP's what happened and they heard the noise too, so they lifted the hood and saw a large python wrapped around the engine, with its head being struck by the fan blades.
The AP's called a Negrito guard over, and he removed the snake and took it home for dinner.

[kmyers]

The one time we had a snake in the house Wendy went to the bathroom about 2:00 am and other than surprise at seeing a 3' snake on the floor she saw it was harmless so grabbed it by the tail and tossed it outside to continue its journey through the circle of life and told me about it later.

[mdf9183]

I used to have chickens and would hatch some of the eggs and raise the young ones. Several times I would go to the the hen house and find a rat snake wrapped around one of the young chicks. I kept an old H&R 22 just for that.

[joe44va]

In the "some folks have no sense of humor" department:
When I was in 4th grade about 1953 I had a pet black snake. Must have been about 12" long. It was show and tell day at school where we could bring in a small pet. I stuck Benny in my shirt and off we went.
Unfortunately we had a substitute that day, Nice LOL (probably 40 or so). I was one of those lucky kids that got to sit right in front of the teacher and she gave us some seat work to do. We're all looking down at our papers and working diligently when all of a sudden the teacher lets out a this loud, blood curdling scream and flew out the door on her broom. Benny had stuck his head out and flicked his tongue at her.
The Principal came to the class room, made me take Benny outside and let him go and suspended me for two days. On the second day i found a replacement for Benny.

[M E Morrison]

Originally Posted by Rustyt1953

Our last house had a creek running through the property. One of our cats, Sophie, lived to hunt and would often deposit her presents on the back deck to show us.

One afternoon I was sitting in the family room which adjoined the open kitchen in which Ruthie was starting dinner. I heard a familiar scratching on the glass door and looked down to see Sophie with a young Garter snake wrapped and writhing around her head. I did the only thing a sensitive husband could do. I got up and wordlessly let Sophie in.

15 seconds later the air raid siren went off and Ruthie almost punctured my eardrums.

I ate at the pub that night.

great story!
would not have worked on my wife, she kept a variety of reptiles as pets....

[Llance]

Originally Posted by M E Morrison

great story!
would not have worked on my wife, she kept a variety of reptiles as pets....

Yeah that would not have worked on my wife either as she too keeps some reptiles around, Cobras, Pythons, Anacondas, etc.. All made by Colt.

[M E Morrison]

Originally Posted by Llance

Yeah that would not have worked on my wife either as she too keeps some reptiles around, Cobras, Pythons, Anacondas, etc.. All made by Colt.

You had me concerned at cobra...

[BillBond]

If I find a rattlesnake in our yard it is toast.
All other snakes are welcome.

[michael1000]

reading here, I only wish that, like facebook, we could have a "laugh" icon in addition to the "like."

[Onomea]

Originally Posted by michael1000

reading here, I only wish that, like facebook, we could have a "laugh" icon in addition to the "like."

.

[Exaviator]

Prior to my retirement I spent twenty years living in Singapore and had a house with a large tropical garden so sighting the odd Cobra was not unusual.


However, on one occasion one found its way into my kitchen and unwisely I decided to dispatch it using my double rubber spear-gun.
Pulling back on the first 5/8-inch rubber and just about to notch it into the spear, the rubber broke and under tension sprung back and struck the back of my left hand which in seconds swelled painfully.


Undaunted, I pulled back on the second rubber, only to have the same repeated, this time to my right hand.


Needless to say, the Cobra got away…

[JohnRippert]

Out with Mom one time at a property owned by one of her Master Naturalist group. They were down near the horseshoe lake listening to him expound on the lake and how it was formed and I was prowling around looking for things to photograph. This canebrake rattlesnake was on the side of one of the trees.

[Muley Gil]

Originally Posted by Exaviator

Prior to my retirement I spent twenty years living in Singapore and had a house with a large tropical garden so sighting the odd Cobra was not unusual.


However, on one occasion one found its way into my kitchen and unwisely I decided to dispatch it using my double rubber spear-gun.
Pulling back on the first 5/8-inch rubber and just about to notch it into the spear, the rubber broke and under tension sprung back and struck the back of my left hand which in seconds swelled painfully.


Undaunted, I pulled back on the second rubber, only to have the same repeated, this time to my right hand.


Needless to say, the Cobra got away…

When I was in Afghanistan, I heard several gunshots INSIDE of our compound. Turns out there were two cobras near one of the guard towers. One of them was shot and the second went in the direction of one of our bunkers-a buried Conex box, covered in sandbags. The snake wasn't found that day.

A day or so later, we had a drill. My job at the training center was head of all training, which made me the #2 guy. As such, I was in charge getting my folks into, you guessed it, the Conex bunker! So there I was, flashlight in one hand and Beretta M9 in the other, checking out the bunker. Luckily, Mr. Hood Head wasn't in there.

We never did find that second cobra.

[michael1000]

i saw "snakeshot" rounds at the local gunstore. .38 caliber. anyone with experience with these?

[CH4]

Many of us in Troop 78, Jackson, CA, loved to hunt western diamondbacks and timber rattlers for dinner during backpacking trips. On one occasion, while walking out from one of our excursions, Bob and I caught a 6’ Diamondback, gutted it and brought it home for a future dinner. Once at home we stuffed it “as is” in an already full kitchen freezer. We then went to his bedroom to hang out. About 10 minutes later we heard a blood-curdling scream come from the kitchen. Seems Bob’s mom opened the freezer to get something out for dinner and the still flaccid snake fell on her. Ooops. We set up camp in the backyard and ate our snake without further incident.

[bgrafsr]

Originally Posted by JohnRippert

Out with Mom one time at a property owned by one of her Master Naturalist group. They were down near the horseshoe lake listening to him expound on the lake and how it was formed and I was prowling around looking for things to photograph. This canebrake rattlesnake was on the side of one of the trees.

That looks like one mean snake, if you go by his facial "expression".

[CALREB]

Wife goes to the barn, 100 yds from the house, every night to check her horses, with babies, and give them a little extra food. I keep the grass cut pretty short. She used to argue about carrying a flashlight, saying she could see ok. I finally got her to use one. Two nights ago she comes to the door with a copperhead in a shovel, its dead. She said it was just laying spread out in the yard, right where she walks. She takes the flashlight now with out issue.

[Goldstar225]

Originally Posted by michael1000

i saw "snakeshot" rounds at the local gunstore. .38 caliber. anyone with experience with these?

They work just fine out to about 9-10 feet. I load my own using the Speer shot capsules and #8 shot.