Updated: 2nd snake call of the season
Fortunately, the second snake call of the season was not as (to me anyway) traumatic. It was later in the afternoon near the end of shift when dispatch radios me.
"S.O. to Unit 4"
"Unit 4 to S.O., go ahead."
"Unit 4, we have a lady on the line that insists she talk to you. Says it's an emergency but she won't tell us what's going on. Her name is Mrs. Barnes."
"Unit 4 to S.O. I'm familiar with her, please tell her to hang up and I'll call her and then I'll call you back."
"10-4 Unit 4."
Mrs. Barnes is a 82 year old widow that we go to church with. Her husband was killed in a farm accident about 20 years ago. She's as sweet as she can be and dotes on Mrs. Faulkner and I always tell her if she needs anything to just reach out to me but this is the first time she ever has. I had her home number in my iPhone so I call her up.
"Hello"
"Mrs. Barnes, this is Faulkner, are you okay?"
"Oh good Lord Faulkner, I'm so sorry to bother you, but I didn't know who else to call. I'm embarrassed to say I have a snake that has invaded my porch and I can't get it to leave."
"Okay Mrs. Barnes, I can be there in about 15 minutes and see what's up. You stay in the house, okay," I told her.
After I hung up from Mrs. Barnes I radioed dispatch and told them what the situation was, gave them the address, and told them I would go by there and see what's up since it was on my home anyway.
Pretty close to 15 minutes later I pulled into the gravel drive of Mrs. Barnes farm home. It dates back to the mid 1960's and is very well kept and has a large screened in front porch with two porch swings on each end facing each other. It's the kind of front porch where folks would sit out in the evenings and watch their neighbors drive by and speculate about where their neighbors were going or coming back from. When I got out and walked up to open the screen door to the front porch I immediately identified the issue at hand, there was a black chicken snake dangling from one of Mrs. Barnes hummingbird feeders and was obviously on the hunt for a tender hummingbird for dinner.
Mrs. Barnes cracked open the front door to greet me.
"Thank you, thank you for coming."
"No problem Mrs. Barnes, it's a big ole chicken snake trying to catch one of your hummingbirds," I replied
"Well, can you get it down? My hummingbirds are like pets."
I turned to her and put my hands on my hips and gave her a stern look. "Okay, Mrs. Barnes, we need to make a deal right here and now." Her eyes widened as she looked back at me. "We will not, under any circumstances, tell Mrs. Faulkner about anything that's happened here today. Before I get rid of this snake for you I need your word we won't talk about this again. I've got over a dozen hummingbird feeders on our front and back porch and if she knew they could attract snakes there is no telling what she'd want me to do to make them snake proof."
She smiled back at me and said, "yes, yes, I won't tell a soul. In fact, you get rid of that snake and I'll bake you an apple pie."
"I like that even better," I said.
This one wasn't too tough of a capture. I walked to my patrol car and got a plastic trash bag and put on a pair of leather gloves. I went back and slowly reached in and grabbed the snake just behind it's head and eased it off the hummingbird feeder and into the plastic bag. As Mrs. Barnes watched from the safety of the front porch she asked what I was going to do with it.
"If you don't want me to turn it loose around here on your place, I'll haul it off somewhere and turn it loose."
"No, no," she said, "please take it with you."
I filled out an incident report before I left and had Mrs. Barnes sign off on it, then said I'd see her at church Sunday.
"And I'll have an apple pie for you and Mrs. Faulkner to take home."
