Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
My wife is deathly afraid of snakes. On our second date we went hiking, we were descending back into the tree line, so around 10,000ft. She asked if there were any snakes. I told her not at that altitude, which is generally, but not universally true. She was telling me how afraid she was of them. I told her she should be more worried about bears which can be a bit aggressive as they were then, early April, stirring from hibernation and hungry. I even pointed out some recent scratchings. Within minutes we come across a pretty impressive bull snake on the trail, a six footer, approximately. My future wife was about ten feet away from me but managed to leap onto my shoulders from about ten feet away.
Fast forward to Sunday. I'm working in the yard. I'm planning maybe 15 minutes of quick work between games. When we first moved in it was not uncommon to encounter prairie rattlesnakes out there, but nothing in 10 years or so. At any rate I hear a panicked scream. I hurry around front and there is a snake in the grass and my wife is freaking out. It looks like maybe a western garter snake or maybe a glossy snake. Its about two feet long and moving pretty quick. I make a grab, but miss and it is into the dense foliage around our front porch. I start moving brush aside, see it coiled, see the tail shaking a bit but hear no sound, and notice a sort of "head flip" motion before it stuck. It missed. I decide now I need my glasses and a rake because it just might be a juvenile massasauga, a moderately poisonous rattlesnake, rare, but not unheard of in the area, and I want to see this rascal better, and not use my hand any further.
I ask my wife and her sister and the neighbor kid to keep their eye on it while I grab what I will need. Of course they lose sight of it. Well my wife is hysterical and mad at me for not catching it the first time. I get it, she is a woman and she is scared, but I do not need nagging from 50 feet away when I am trying to get the poisonous snake out from the bushes. I can't see the damn thing, but I know its in there.
Well the plan at that point is to get the sprinkler out. Our water is about 50 degrees coming out of the hose and I figure if I cool those bushes off it just might want to return to the afternoon sun to warm itself. Now it is unlikely to move from cover if it feels my vibrations walking around so I stand, still, for an hour and a half getting sprinkled while hoping that thing will emerge. My wife makes occasional appearances at an upstairs window to offer some beratement she calculates will be helpful. Finally, after standing absolutely still in the cool water of the sprinkler the now somewhat sluggish snake emerges, slightly. Sure enough it is a massasuaga. I am trying to remember if they are protected and if there is a penalty for killing them, and if that applies around your home. No matter. I pin it with the rake and dispatch it with a spade. Both pieces keep flipping and twisting for a few minutes. I flip them into a garbage bag with the rake, not wanting to get bitten by the severed head which can reflexively strike in some snakes, and not knowing about this species why take a chance.
Well my wife decides that the two pieces can not go in our trash. They must be driven at least 5 miles away and disposed of. There was a time when I might have raised questions about that, but not for years, I am an experienced married guy. Rather than raise obvious questions or make apparent observations I take this as the opportunity it is, an opportunity to smoke a cigar, so I hop in my truck and take some alone time.
When I return my wife announces that she will no longer garden (yeah savings) and that I must remove all the foliage in which the snake took refuge. Fine, the overgrown crap she had up there never appealed to me anyhow. Two hours later I am told I need to put out snake traps and snake repellant. I am not even sure there are such things. I may look tonight at the home depot, then again I may simply start ignoring her, my reason, no b.j. for spending my time and patience getting the first one, which was extremely unlike to have ever bothered us in the first place. I mean its opening weekend for the NFL and I am standing in a sprinkle zone, outside, still, holding a rake for nearly two hours so that I can kill a relatively benign animal which is actually doing us service if it is actually in residence, by keeping down the mice and vole population, and NO B.J.! There's right and there's right, and that ain't right.
Fast forward to Sunday. I'm working in the yard. I'm planning maybe 15 minutes of quick work between games. When we first moved in it was not uncommon to encounter prairie rattlesnakes out there, but nothing in 10 years or so. At any rate I hear a panicked scream. I hurry around front and there is a snake in the grass and my wife is freaking out. It looks like maybe a western garter snake or maybe a glossy snake. Its about two feet long and moving pretty quick. I make a grab, but miss and it is into the dense foliage around our front porch. I start moving brush aside, see it coiled, see the tail shaking a bit but hear no sound, and notice a sort of "head flip" motion before it stuck. It missed. I decide now I need my glasses and a rake because it just might be a juvenile massasauga, a moderately poisonous rattlesnake, rare, but not unheard of in the area, and I want to see this rascal better, and not use my hand any further.
I ask my wife and her sister and the neighbor kid to keep their eye on it while I grab what I will need. Of course they lose sight of it. Well my wife is hysterical and mad at me for not catching it the first time. I get it, she is a woman and she is scared, but I do not need nagging from 50 feet away when I am trying to get the poisonous snake out from the bushes. I can't see the damn thing, but I know its in there.
Well the plan at that point is to get the sprinkler out. Our water is about 50 degrees coming out of the hose and I figure if I cool those bushes off it just might want to return to the afternoon sun to warm itself. Now it is unlikely to move from cover if it feels my vibrations walking around so I stand, still, for an hour and a half getting sprinkled while hoping that thing will emerge. My wife makes occasional appearances at an upstairs window to offer some beratement she calculates will be helpful. Finally, after standing absolutely still in the cool water of the sprinkler the now somewhat sluggish snake emerges, slightly. Sure enough it is a massasuaga. I am trying to remember if they are protected and if there is a penalty for killing them, and if that applies around your home. No matter. I pin it with the rake and dispatch it with a spade. Both pieces keep flipping and twisting for a few minutes. I flip them into a garbage bag with the rake, not wanting to get bitten by the severed head which can reflexively strike in some snakes, and not knowing about this species why take a chance.
Well my wife decides that the two pieces can not go in our trash. They must be driven at least 5 miles away and disposed of. There was a time when I might have raised questions about that, but not for years, I am an experienced married guy. Rather than raise obvious questions or make apparent observations I take this as the opportunity it is, an opportunity to smoke a cigar, so I hop in my truck and take some alone time.
When I return my wife announces that she will no longer garden (yeah savings) and that I must remove all the foliage in which the snake took refuge. Fine, the overgrown crap she had up there never appealed to me anyhow. Two hours later I am told I need to put out snake traps and snake repellant. I am not even sure there are such things. I may look tonight at the home depot, then again I may simply start ignoring her, my reason, no b.j. for spending my time and patience getting the first one, which was extremely unlike to have ever bothered us in the first place. I mean its opening weekend for the NFL and I am standing in a sprinkle zone, outside, still, holding a rake for nearly two hours so that I can kill a relatively benign animal which is actually doing us service if it is actually in residence, by keeping down the mice and vole population, and NO B.J.! There's right and there's right, and that ain't right.
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Glad the cows are safe.
