My Wife vs Snakes.

Sac Arrow said:
I interviewed for a job at Diablo Canyon. I think I didn't get it because I was non-committal on the question of "what kind of work do you prefer doing, indoors or outdoors?" ("I can deal equally well with either.")

Translation: We need a patsy to patrol up and down pipelines and valve boxes and look for leaks, and we need to make sure you're the right guy.
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Well, maybe better you didn't get the job, sounds like a bore-fest. I worked in radioactive leaks, and radiation exposure for materials. It was a fun job while it lasted, and I got to go inside unit 1 and 2 of TMI which not many folks can say. Talk about your snakes, there were cables and hoses everywhere in that plant.
 
docmirror said:
Well, maybe better you didn't get the job, sounds like a bore-fest. I worked in radioactive leaks, and radiation exposure for materials. It was a fun job while it lasted, and I got to go inside unit 1 and 2 of TMI which not many folks can say. Talk about your snakes, there were cables and hoses everywhere in that plant.
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Yeah, I got that impression myself, which is why I didn't put a whole lot of energy in to impressing the panel.
 
We had Rattle Snakes in our backyard, and in the land behind me in Colorado. They used to come out mid day, and sun themselves on the walking trail behind the house. Some were pretty big too. They never bothered me, as I could see them. Now the ones that slink in the tall grass in upstate PA, and can't be easily seen worry me more, but I've never killed them, just gave them a wide birth if I DID see one.
 
Snake Prevention Tactic = Stomp Loudly and Carry Big Stick. Tested and proven with many many miles on hikes and backpack trails in snake countries.
 
Count me as someone else who likes snakes - and I know a couple of other women in my hiking group who do as well. :)

But I draw the line at the venomous kind. Copperheads? No thanks. I've been as close to them as I ever want to get in the Smokies. Luckily the only rattlesnakes in Vermont are over 100 miles from where I'm going to be living (though that could change with global warming).
 
Although I don't go out of my way to kill snakes, I sure as hell don't want them within a mile of me.

Bart: If you don't want your wife killing snakes, send her over to me. I won't complain at all, just so long as she doesn't insist on showing me her trophies!

Uh... Does she do dishes??
 
A friend in Colorado years ago was a geologist. Always carried a .44 Magnum with shot shells. Said it was great for snakes. It did two things simultaneously. It killed them and it moved them farther away. :D
 
Snakes don't bother me, although I sometimes relocate the venomous ones elsewhere. It's technically illegal unless you release them on your own land, but the laws are unenforced. The state prefers relocation to people killing them, so they look the other way.

Venomous snakes are pretty rare around here, though. We get an occasional copperhead and (very rarely) a timber rattlesnake, but that's about it. Supposedly they have pygmy rattlesnakes up around Syracuse, but I never saw any when I lived there.

-Rich
 
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Instead of a gun full of snake shot and flip flops here's bartmc's guide to living in harmony with poisonous snakes. A little common sense and precaution go a long way.

1. Don't be an idiot.
2. Get a pair of snake boots.
3. Be careful when reaching down to pick things up. You don't want a hand bite.
4. If you see the snake, you've won the battle. No need to shoot. Just walk away.
5. Don't agitate them. Swinging at one with a stick will increase your chances of being bit more than walking away.
6. Snake bites are rare and almost never fatal. You're 20x more likely to die from a lightning strike. Deer cause more harm to humans than snakes do.
7. You are not snake food. The snake doesn't want to spend the venom and energy to bite you (possible exception for some cottonmouths). Some even have convenient rattles to let you know they'd prefer you walk away.
 
bartmc said:
My wife hates snakes (and alligators) and kills the snakes on site. Drives me absolutely nuts. We live in a swamp with all sorts of critters and the snakes are a welcome addition to keep the rodent numbers down. So I get home yesterday and she's got a fresh kill. I asked "why did you kill it?" She replied "Because I saw it on my walk" this snake was posing no threat to her. She walked across the property got a shovel and went back and killed it. Walked 300 yards to kill it. I told her I have a hard time believing it was posing an immediate threat to her given the nature of her defense. She gets defensive and tells me to give it up when I tell her the snakes are beneficial to keeping the rats and mice at bay and they pose little to no threat to her. She even admits it's irrational but refuses to give up her snake killing ways.

Here's yesterday's victim.

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A chopped in half garter snake is not uncommon to find in the drive way.

We did have a HUGE great horned owl in a tree the other day too... Hopefully he's working OT on rodent extermination.
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The markings on that body look like a copperhead to me.
 
bartmc said:
Instead of a gun full of snake shot and flip flops here's bartmc's guide to living in harmony with poisonous snakes. A little common sense and precaution go a long way.

1. Don't be an idiot.
2. Get a pair of snake boots.
3. Be careful when reaching down to pick things up. You don't want a hand bite.
4. If you see the snake, you've won the battle. No need to shoot. Just walk away.
5. Don't agitate them. Swinging at one with a stick will increase your chances of being bit more than walking away.
6. Snake bites are rare and almost never fatal. You're 20x more likely to die from a lightning strike. Deer cause more harm to humans than snakes do.
7. You are not snake food. The snake doesn't want to spend the venom and energy to bite you (possible exception for some cottonmouths). Some even have convenient rattles to let you know they'd prefer you walk away.
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You are correct Bart and in 58 years I think I have killed one with the riding mower. Never saw him till he was flying out the chute. But in all honesty they really give me the willies. My family loves to watch me watch a movie with snakes in it. It can be very entertaining.
 
This evening I am sitting at my desk, quiet, writing a paper...... Suddenly there is loud crying screaming and banging on the back door. I jump up knocking over my chair, scaring the holy frizz out of the cat, lock and load while running to the back door. I yanked the door open to find my wife, wide eyed in shear panic. I get her quieted down enough to be able to understand her. Seems she was out watering her garden and saw a snake. I mean according to her she saw a 8 foot snake almost a foot in diameter. Since no one was being murdered, I put my pistol on safety then step off the porch. She pointed me to the area where she saw the snake. I looked for it, moved some of the logs lining the pathway leading to the garage. Then I saw it. A little tan colored grass snake about 8 inches long. Doing his best to stay hidden in the dirt. Poor little guy. I could see he was breathing hard like he was scared.

By this time my wife had calmed down a little. She was afraid to step off the porch. By the way, my house is 3 feet off the ground and so is the porch. She was on her hands and knees trying to look through the spaces between the boards to see if there were any snakes under the porch.

I walked back up to the porch and put my arms around her to calm her down. She buried her head in my chest. I asked her why she was pounding on the door, why didn't she just come inside? She looked up at me with her frightened brown eyes, a tear coming down, and said. "I forgot how to open the door"....
 
We get diamond backs coming up around the buildings all the time. Used to give me the willies but the longer your around them the less scary they are. I fashioned a snake grabber out of a 6' long aluminum tube with a loop of cotton rope down the center and out the end. You just carefully slip the noose around their head and pull on the other end of the rope and you have total control. I just drop em in a bucket and relocate them elsewhere on the property. These guys are pretty docile really and usually just sit there while I snag them. Field mice are quite damaging here and I appreciate the hard work the snakes do keeping them in check.
 
Zeldman said:
This evening I am sitting at my desk, quiet, writing a paper...... Suddenly there is loud crying screaming and banging on the back door. I jump up knocking over my chair, scaring the holy frizz out of the cat, lock and load while running to the back door. I yanked the door open to find my wife, wide eyed in shear panic. I get her quieted down enough to be able to understand her. Seems she was out watering her garden and saw a snake. I mean according to her she saw a 8 foot snake almost a foot in diameter. Since no one was being murdered, I put my pistol on safety then step off the porch. She pointed me to the area where she saw the snake. I looked for it, moved some of the logs lining the pathway leading to the garage. Then I saw it. A little tan colored grass snake about 8 inches long. Doing his best to stay hidden in the dirt. Poor little guy. I could see he was breathing hard like he was scared.

By this time my wife had calmed down a little. She was afraid to step off the porch. By the way, my house is 3 feet off the ground and so is the porch. She was on her hands and knees trying to look through the spaces between the boards to see if there were any snakes under the porch.

I walked back up to the porch and put my arms around her to calm her down. She buried her head in my chest. I asked her why she was pounding on the door, why didn't she just come inside? She looked up at me with her frightened brown eyes, a tear coming down, and said. "I forgot how to open the door"....
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My in law's deck is full of bird shot for similar terrifying reasons.
 
When I lived on Catalina I had a place with a brick patio that was at the bottom of a wooded slope, every night the rattle snakes would come down and settle on the patio, every morning I flicked them over the wall with a mop handle and go to work, no big deal. On the place in TX they were everywhere, I'd hear them and just stay a few feet away. The can't strike much more than half their length and don't particularly consider you as a meal to waste venom on. If you don't threaten, they don't strike.
 
Up here all we have are harmless, 98% Garter Snakes. I leave them be. If we had poisonous snakes I'd treat them different.
 
I can hardly wait for the first interstellar aliens to arrive and encounter man - aliens evolved from reptiles:
Cap'n they are slow and stupid but they might be dangerous and they walk upright on two legs, two!
Very well then, nuke em just to be safe!
 
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