rocketraider

Was doing laundry late this afternoon out in the country house. Washer/dryer are on an enclosed back porch with storm windows. I keep miniblinds down and closed to keep nosey folks out when I'm gone.

OK- look out the window right next to the back door and wonder WTF is that on the window? Raise the blind and there is a rat snake, climbing up the side of the house!

I had an umbrella handy so I rattled the window a couple times hoping he would get down off the house. He didn't. He looked in the window at me.

OK, I'm thinking. How do I get this damn snake off the house so he'll go on somewhere and I won't have to kill it. Went out the front door and out to the shed, and got Mama's old walking stick and a hoe just in case.

Poked him with the stick a couple times trying to get him to come down, he didn't want to and made for the gutter.

So I took the stick and flipped him off the side of the house onto the ground, thinking maybe he'll go on somewhere. A rat snake or blacksnake is a beneficial snake as they will keep copperheads at bay and control rodent populations, so I did not want to kill it.

This hardheaded 3-foot snake went back toward the house and tried to start climbing up the back porch again. OK bucko, you had yer chance. There is nothing for a snake to eat on or in the house and I do not share quarters with reptiles.

Three swift chops with the hoe solved the snake problem.

Old folks wisdom always said if you hang a dead blacksnake over a tree limb, it will rain within 24 hours. It's storming right now.

I also realised I need to sharpen the garden tools. My cuts were not clean.

I guess I am truly my Mama's son. She was death on two legs for a snake. As far as she was concerned they were all moccasins and, if she saw them, paid the ultimate price.

And today was the first snake I've seen out there since a couple years before she died.

Still gives me the heeby-jeebys that a snake was trying to crawl up or get in the house. I'll probably dream about snakes tonight.

Yellowstatue

So now you are going to have a RAT problem but that is countered by a pending ample supply of moccasins...

oldsca

Snakes + me = nightmares for sure.

Wayne

Oldsguy

I think it could have been hunting for a bird's nest. I saw a bird trying to build a nest in one of my gutter corners just above the downspout so you never know. I cleaned it out and put one of those wire mesh covers of the downspout, problem solved.

Jamesbo

One less Mr. No shoulders to worry about. I've got a 6' on my wall that only had one rattle and the button.

Ran over him 4 or 5 times with a Blazer, shot him 6 more times before I'd pick him up with a boat paddle.

jeffreyalman

braver than I

rocketraider

I wondered about birds too but don't see any sign of them anywhere around that back porch. There's a mockingbird who sits on the TV antenna and sings all day, but surely that fool snake didn't think he could get all the way up there, especially to get a full-grown mockingbird. They'll wear a snake out too.

The last snake I saw out there, when Mama was still alive, I was getting the mower out from under the shed and there were young birds in there raising san. I just figured they were learning to fly. Made a couple rounds with the mower and saw him. A great big rat snake, probably 5 footer, coming out from under my old 76 Custom Cruiser parked out back of the shed. About the front third of him raised up, looked right at me, and then he went on out into the field. A really regal-looking serpent.

That's when it dawned on me that he'd probably been under the shed after those birds. If I had pulled the mower out and he'd been there, I'd have had to clean my drawers. That was the only time I ever saw him.

My Daddy always said a snake wouldn't hurt you, but it would make you hurt yourself. Didn't have to worry about it as long as Mama saw them first.

Maybe I should get some guinea fowl. They'll keep snakes and ticks away, if you can deal with the noise and poop. Guineas are better watchdogs than most dogs. They see something out of the ordinary, they will raise hell and sometimes chase it off. A friend had some and I saw them chase a copperhead out of his yard, squawking and pecking the whole time.

rocketraider

OK- always heard snakes travel in pairs. I was out there cutting grass this afternoon and when I came around the south wall of the garage, I see this keen black tail going around the corner of the garage, on the wall the roll-up door is on.

Got around the corner and sure enough there is another rat snake, about the same size as the first, headed for the open garage door. Uh-uh, that ain't gonna happen. I didn't even give this one a chance before I whacked it into three pieces.

So now I have snake blood on me concrete, and another dead snake laying in the gravel road. Last I looked, the crows were picking at it.

Hopefully that's the last one. Now watch me get overrun with rodents...

Snakes have their place. On the house and in the garage are not on the list. All they'd have had to do was stay in the field and they'd be alive.

Lady72nRob71

For a while, I think i would be checking the toilet bowl before using it...

My neighbor has a snake go up his patio support to empty out a swallow nest a few years back.

cutlassgal

I say kill them all! Not really... I suppose we need a few around. But I don't like 'em!! I freak out when I see a garter snake! Eeewwww.....

Rocket... I didn't know Guinea's keep snakes away! That's a good thing, but Guinea's make me crazy!!! They ARE loud and obnoxious sounding. I grew up with those things around..... nothing worse than trying to sleep in and the damned Guinea's out there squaking!

jeffreyalman

boy there is some scary stuff out there when you google SNAKE IN TOILET http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&so...NAKE+IN+TOILET