I have never, not once, been harassed by a snake when there is frost on the ground. Let the weather start to warm up and I have to watch where I step, sort of like it was when I was a barefoot boy growing up and we had chickens in the yard. You’re much more likely to step in a chicken dab than one left by a snake. I’m not even sure if snakes do Number Two.
The fact that we’re in the time of year when snakes make their appearance got me to thinking and remembering a close call I once had with a snake.
My most memorable encounter occurred when I was a kid and for the first time in my young life, I was sure I was facing death when a snake bit me. I was down at the creek with my brother, Tom and two cousins, Doug and Sambo when it happened. We had a puppy that enjoyed a swim and I was paddling around the swimming hole with the pup when I felt a sharp pain behind of my knee.
My first thought was that one of the boys had sneaked up and pinched me on the leg. Glancing shoreward, all three were on the bank so I knew something else had attacked me. Reaching down, my fingers wrapped around a snake almost as long as I was tall. Hurling it aside and screaming like a little girl, the pup and I scaled the bank and my mouth went dry and I’m sure I was pale as a ghost when I saw blood streaming down my leg.
There I was, down in the woods a mile from home and I was sure my final resting place would be here on the bank of our swimming hole.
After the boys joined me to help me formulate a plan, cousin Doug reached in his pocket and pulled out his rusty Barlow pocket knife and was prepared to do his part in saving my life by making a cut to extract the deadly venom from my body.
Glancing at the rusty knife, I didn’t know if I would rather die from snake venom or from blood poisoning from a knife blade that had been used recently to skin a squirrel and dig a splinter out of a toe. Studying my snake bite closely, I noticed that there were not the two telltale fang marks of a venomous snake but a row of teeth marks letting me know I might die of fright but to Doug’s disappointment, I was bitten by a non-poisonous water snake and wouldn’t need his knife.
Today, there are two schools of thought regarding snakes. One says that snakes serve a useful purpose and they should be left alone. The other says if it’s a snake, any snake, get the hoe and whack that sucker.
I’m somewhere in between. If I happen to see a venomous snake, especially in my yard, I’ll whack him. Otherwise, I generally give snakes a pass, with one exception.
Rat snakes are said to be good snakes relieving your yard of rats and mice. I usually let them go except when my bird box has a clutch of baby blue birds and a rat snake shifts focus from rats and mice to baby birds. If I catch him anywhere near my bird box, he’s history.
For the past four springs, I have been able to watch only one batch of baby bluebirds fledge. The other three years, theyhatched but rat snakes got ‘em before they were able to leave the nest.
Whichever camp you’re in, the love em and leave em alone or the grab the hoe and whack ‘em group, your time is now because it’s warm and snakes are out and about.
Just be sure, if you’re bitten by a snake, check for fang marks versus a row of teeth marks, and watch out for your cousin wearing an evil grin opening the blade on his rusty pocket knife.