the strangest thing

etat · August 17, 2004, 11:45:12 PM

ok; i guess i'm getting older or something. you see, i just pretty much always hated about any kind of a snake. as in, the only good snake is a dead snake.

well today we're roofing a new house on a wooded lot. late this evening i spy a little bitty spotted snake resting beside the carport. only about 8 inches long. looked like it had just had a good meal as it's belly was way swollen.

for some reason i felt sorry for it and held it's little head with a stick and picked it up by it's tail and dropped it in a five gallon bucket. i figured i'd take it and drop it off in them woods.

well, i guess it was pretty much disturbed. cause when i dropped it off in that bucket it started twisting and squirming. i didn't know what it was a doing. in a minute it spit out a half digested frog. i carried the bucket over to the edge of the woods and set it down. later i checked on it and it had swallowed the frog again. i figured it weren't hurting nothing so i let it go, with a full belly.

dang keyboard's messed up, won't type capitol letters. ???

Gilman · August 18, 2004, 01:04:10 AM

Well, here it is... I think all FF members should be required by FF law to carry their digital cameras with them at all times. Who here ye? ((( I thought I hear an, "eye" out ther somewher." )))

I'm a bit of a wimp living her in the NW. We apparently have brown recluse's here but I've never seen one myself. No poisonous snakes, frogs, cats, dogs, or other such things. You boys keep them kritters on your side of the mountains!!!

I know, I know, I'll be correct right quickly on this one :D

Cedarman · August 18, 2004, 06:29:38 AM

My son was pitching slabs at his mill in Alabama a year or so ago and out came a 5 foot rattlesnake. A few weeks later he went to open the main gate in the morning and there lay a copperhead. One night he was at a friends house out in the boonies sitting on the front porch drinking a tall cool one when they heard the most blood curdling scream they had ever heard. Scared the you know what out of them. Next day they were told they had heard one of the rare panthers holler.
He says you can't stand still in the yard or the fire ants will eat you. He said he saw in the paper where a 600 pound alligator was killed at Eps on the Tombigbee waterway. This country ain't completely tamed yet.

MemphisLogger · August 18, 2004, 07:41:12 AM

Shoot, last spring I'm out leading a herd of 1st and 2nd graders on a nature hike in some pristine local bottoms near their school when I hear a bunch of oohing and ahhing back at the rear of the group. ???

I go back to see what they've found and find one of the little girls holding a foot long copperhead that their teacher had caught passed around. :-/

The snake had already been handled by 5 or 6 kids so I figured it wasn't too pissy about it so I took it from the girl gently and used it to show them how you tell a poisonous snake by the shape of it's head. :P

As soon as they know it's poisonous, all them kids liked to have crawled up that teacher's skirt. :D :D

I still rib her about it anytime I come to her class. ;D

Bro. Noble · August 18, 2004, 08:15:46 AM

This thread could very quickly turn into a "that's nothing, you otta see what we've got" situations :D

Well, we've had some critters right in our front yard that were lots more scary and dangerous than all the previously mentioned put together

Had a knock on the door and this wild eyed fellow said he was needing help. You might have seen the pictures Jeff posted of the 'Brush Creek' crossing. Well it's a concrete slab about 9 ft wide. The guy's car was setting in creek just above the slab. He said some sorry so-and-so took up both lanes and forced him off the bridge :

We have poisonous snakes and spiders and reportedly big cats too, but I worry lots more about coming across those doped up city dudes

Gilman · August 18, 2004, 10:28:20 AM

Noble,
That reminds me of a story about some glazed eyes teens that showed up at my Dad's house late one night. They asked if he had a 4 x 4 because the ran their car off the road and through a fence. He thought for a moment and decided he wasn't going to give these two yahoos a good 4 x 4. Then it dawned on him. "There's a couple old 4 x 4's up there in the wood pile, help yourself." He then shut the door and went back to watching Mattlock.

Two days later he said he got a big grin on his face and started laughing. It had just dawned on him that those yahoos might have been referring to a different type of 4 x 4. My '47 Willy's 4x4 pickup was parked up by that wood pile!

leweee · August 18, 2004, 12:29:16 PM

Gilman,,, come on now tell use which 4x4 did they use ??? ;D

Gilman · August 18, 2004, 04:01:04 PM

Fortunately the keys were in the house :D I just wish I could have been there to see the look on the yahoos faces. :-/ I'd of paid a buck for that.

etat · August 18, 2004, 05:24:31 PM

probably not as mean and as ugly as the snakes bro. noble. urbanlogger, cedarman and gilman are talking about. :D

MemphisLogger · August 19, 2004, 06:35:43 PM

sure isn't . . .

she's gorgeous!

Good lookin little reptile too ;)

etat · August 20, 2004, 01:06:05 PM

that's jennifer, my daughter. first time she ever held a snake. dang girl starts to college monday. you can't trust some kids, they grow up too quick. she's starting out studying to be a paralegal.

by the way, i'm mighty proud of her1111

Norm · August 20, 2004, 01:34:21 PM

They do grow up fast don't they CK, my youngest graduted from college this August. I told both sons that since I had provided for em for 20 some odd years that it was now their turn to support me in the lifestyle I've grown acustomed to. Said they'd signed a contract when they were born, have their footprint to prove it. ;D

Patty · August 20, 2004, 02:34:37 PM

Your daughter is real pretty CK, and brave and smart to boot! Not too many girls I know would hold a snake. Next thing you know she'll be graduating college and looking at Harvard law school! 8)
Good luck to her in college. ;)

SwampDonkey · August 20, 2004, 06:15:31 PM

I sometimes am startled by snakes in the woods. I don't want to handle them, but am not scared of 'em. Even though by heart jumps up into my throat when I am first startled by one. I don't believe they should be killed though, because I know they control the ambhibian and rodent populations. We don't have poisonius snakes up here. One day I was lucky to see a garder snake take a wood frog and eat'm live. Not so lucky for the wood frog. But, it was interesting to see how that little snake could consume it. ;)

Speaking of rodents: often times I eat my lunch in the woods and I sit on a nice mound of shreber's moss or a stump and if you sit still long enough its surprising the rodents you'll see. I saw a family of 4 mice one day that would tunnel through the stairstep moss, then under a rotten stump and out again, then back in a pile of brush. Then back they come again. Those little creatures must have a high metabolism cause they never sit still: looking, sacking, eating, runnin all over. I remember pick'n taters in the fall when I was quite young and the potato digger would disturb nests of field mice from under the potato tops and the girls would screech and hollar, run and jump up and down, all over a 'whiddle' mouse. :D

cheers

Gilman · August 20, 2004, 08:08:59 PM

Swampdonky,
You reminded me of a story of a couple stories when I was about 8 years old.

First one. I have an older cousin, if you have one you know what that means, that had just cought a big gardener snake when my mom dropped my off. He told me to hold it while he went inside to find a box. Well, after a bit the snake started to try and start crawling up on itself. I'd shake it and it would fall back down a bit, but it wasn't showing the respect that I apparently thought I deserved. So, the next time it started curling back up, I have it a quick swing. Boy, that seemed to work better than shaking! Soooo, when the snake started to cimb up itself the third time I gave that sucker a good ferris wheel spin (more like the hamerhead). That snake was straight as an arrow. I liked the results. Well on the forth attempt to climb up itself I really gave it a spin. Unfortunately for the snake I was either too short or it was too long and the snake had an abrupt end of life experience when it mistakenly mistook a rock for a soft ball of cotton. I swear to this day that it wasn't my fault.

Well... what the heck am I going to do with a dead snake? The cousin is not going to be happy >:( So I take the snake, set it on the ground and coil it into a perfect coiled ball.

The cousin came out, looked down, quickly looked up, snarled and said, "What the F.. you do with my snake?"

"What do you mean? It just got tired and needed a nap."

Long story longer, I spent the rest of the day searching for a replacement snake.

The second story is short.
Cought a snake a the same cousin's house.
Sister, female cousins and their female friends were playing on the tire swing. One swinging and the other watching. Apparently I finally found that replacement snake and the older cousin had a "great" idea.

Inching forward, quiet as a mouse, I spread the snake out and quickly wrapped it around one of the observing girl's neck.

Well I'm sure you all know what happened then. Fire trucks became jealous to not have a siren that was that loud.

The worst part is my mother found out.

I swore my bike was going to rust to death before I ever got to ride it again.

DanG · August 20, 2004, 08:39:18 PM

I'm with you, S-Donkey. I don't kill snakes unless they are a threat. I see lots of vipers on the roads around here, but leave them be unless they are close to someone's yard.

However, I'm about to bat for the cycle, here at home. First, I killed a Cottonmouth Moccasin just in front of my shop. That was just about the time my old computer bit the dirt. Then, about 2 or 3 weeks later I came out the door of the house and heard this hissing noise. At first I thought the hose had sprung a leak, but then I saw all the cats circled around what looked like a big cow pie. The pie turned out to be a 4' Diamondback Rattlesnake, whom I promptly smote over the head with my shovel. A few days later, I slew a Copperhead under the workbench in my shop. The only other poisonous snake we have, is the Coral snake, and I ain't seen one of them in years. These fellows have really got me watchin' where I step.

SwampDonkey · August 21, 2004, 04:54:50 AM

DanG:

Ya gotta admit a little garder snake is harmless though. I'm glad its too cold up here for them fanged vipers. ;)

MemphisLogger · August 21, 2004, 09:18:52 AM

The first time I met my next door neighbor was over a snake.

My neighbor happens to be my mailman (we live on Sesame Street) and had just pepper sprayed Ol' Blue the day before. >:(

Anyhow, I'm out in my shop in just my shorts (summer before I put in AC) when I hear some cussin' and the sound of someone bangin' a stick out on my driveway. I run out thinkin' some fool is messin' with my dog.

When I get out there I find my neighbor/mailman wielding a stick over a twitching snake. When I get close I see it's a 5' or better corn snake. :'(

Dang was I p----d, first this guy sprays my dog and now he's killing my vermin control. He says he thought it was a rattler (corn snakes like to act like one) and was afraid it was gonna bite him. What I wondered is why he would go get a stick and come back to the snake if'n he was so scared ???

Dom · August 21, 2004, 10:26:01 AM

QuoteDanG:

Ya gotta admit a little garder snake is harmless though. I'm glad its too cold up here for them fanged vipers. ;)

Indeed!

jimbo · August 21, 2004, 05:54:46 PM

i still have to say the only good one is a dead one

jimbo

rbarshaw · August 21, 2004, 08:59:28 PM

My friend called to say a snake wouldnt let her kids down the road to the schoolbus. Me and the wife went down in the pickup,her drivin, it was off the road in the grass. I snapped off a dead sapling and poked around in the grass and this rattler came out fast and *pithed at the world. I jumped up in the back of the pickup and unloaded 18 rounds from a semiautomatic 22 into it. Seams like all that did was make it meaner. It put several dents in the side of the pickup, try'in to get at me

. had to go home and get the shotgun and blow its head off. It was 8' long without the head and about 6" thru most of the body, the head was the size of my hand.