great story...
My biggest fear about all the little garter snakes that inhabit the
bushy perennials in my garden, the mints, the lavendars, and grasses, is
that someday i'll dig in with my spade and cut one in two. Ewwwwwww
creeeepy. I have to come up with a way to scare them out of there in
the spring before I start to dig.
> someday i'll dig in with my spade and cut one in two
One year I almost did just that -- I was shoveling compost
into the wheelbarrow and up flew a BIG snake with STRIPES.
I had stunned it a bit and was able to catch it with fork
and spade and drop it in a bucket which I then covered with
plywood and some rocks for good measure until I could go in
and look up what kind it was. Just a poor milk snake. We
let it go in the woods and I have felt kind of bad about
that ever since. If I had known my snakes better in the
first place I wouldn't have hurt it. It looks very different
from a copperhead, which is what I immediately guessed it
was while pummeling it first and asking questions later.
This year there is a black snake in the basement again. I
saw it one evening last fall but when my husnad went down to
catch it he couldn't find it. We haven't seen it since. In a
way that's nice because we have no mice at all. It's bad
though because I always look UP at the rafters and pipes and
so on in search of it when I do laundry or check on the
seedlings. Takes some fo the fun out of it but I guess it
keeps me on my toes. It was pretty small, compared to the
really big one we had a few years ago. That made me nervous
because I didn't know how long it had been down there and it
was HUGE.
I am terrified of snakes, too.
--
Barbara Martin
en Reports!
http://www.garden.org
We have an ongoing story in this house about Ipi Tombi, Suky Blackbird
and their adventures in the bush. One of the favourite stories is about
the BIG black Mamba snake, who actually behaves rather like Nag the
cobra.
Ginny in Victoria BC not Oz, who with grandson learnt gumboot dancing
last weekend.
Uuuh, my gosh! I wouldn't even have volunteered to get the thing out of
there! I would have watched from a safe distance :)
Brigitte
The Alternative Pond & Gardens Mart, Inc.
http://www.pondmarket.com.
Pizi
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 4:13 PM
To: GARDENS@LSV.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: OT: re snake story
We`ve got a snake story also in our family . Our land is in terraces
,on the top terrace we have a concrete tank to collect water from a
natural spring (which was once a gush and is now a trickle) we
keep fish there and ever so often we go up there and give them
some corn, one day I found a huge dead snake, floating in the
water, when I told my DH he said go and get a long fork and if you
stand on my shoulders you can fish it out so it won`t contaminate
the water so this is what I did . He couldn`t see it because I usually
climb up like a cat and balance on the top with my elbows ,
anyway I leaned over, standing on his shoulders and managed to
swerve it near by, I started to lift it out but it was so heavy it was
very hard , my DH looked up to see why I was taking so long and
saw this huge snake descending on him and got such a fright he
made a runner , I lost my balance and fell straight in to the tank,
yuck , lucky for me the water was high enough for me to be able to
cling to the side and after a while heave myself out but that snake
was eight feet long and had a body thick like a mans lower leg it
probably was bloated but even so It was big . We are not supposed
to have snakes like that here, something to do with there brains
explode at lower levels,in which case it might be of the water snake
family , who knows , during the night another animal came and ate
half of it .
so no snake skin shoes or handbag.
End of story
:)
Jenny in Italy.
Jenny Pizi
***********
jenpizi@tin.it
Mambas I remember from East Africa, but what about the cobra???
Barbara Martin
Now at The Cottage Garden: "ACK! ACK! SNAKE!"
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/cottage_gardening
Active Co-Owner, Gardens List mailto:gardens-request@lsv.uky.edu
Regional Horticulturist, National Gardening Association
NEW! My Own Mid Atlantic Garden Reports! http://www.garden.org
And just what is gumboot dancing? It sounds like dancing in your muddy
garden with boots on.
Karen
> Ginny in Victoria BC not Oz, who with grandson learnt gumboot
> dancing
> last weekend.
________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
We`ve got a snake story also in our family . Our land is in terraces
,on the top terrace we have a concrete tank to collect water from a
natural spring (which was once a gush and is now a trickle) we
keep fish there and ever so often we go up there and give them
some corn, one day I found a huge dead snake, floating in the
water, when I told my DH he said go and get a long fork and if you
stand on my shoulders you can fish it out so it won`t contaminate
the water so this is what I did . He couldn`t see it because I usually
climb up like a cat and balance on the top with my elbows ,
anyway I leaned over, standing on his shoulders and managed to
swerve it near by, I started to lift it out but it was so heavy it was
very hard , my DH looked up to see why I was taking so long and
saw this huge snake descending on him and got such a fright he
made a runner , I lost my balance and fell straight in to the tank,
yuck , lucky for me the water was high enough for me to be able to
cling to the side and after a while heave myself out but that snake
was eight feet long and had a body thick like a mans lower leg it
probably was bloated but even so It was big . We are not supposed
to have snakes like that here, something to do with there brains
explode at lower levels,in which case it might be of the water snake
family , who knows , during the night another animal came and ate
half of it .
so no snake skin shoes or handbag.
End of story
:)
Jenny in Italy.
Jenny Pizi
***********
jenpizi@tin.it
You're a brave soul Jenny. I found 2 mice in a large pail in the shed =
last spring. They were floating in some water and I had DH throw them =
into the woods. I couldn't get near them.
BTW, does those sand storms do much damage to your vehicles?
Penny
> jenpizi@BOX5.TIN.IT 04/05/00 05:12PM >>>
We`ve got a snake story also in our family . Our land is in terraces
,on the top terrace we have a concrete tank to collect water from a
natural spring (which was once a gush and is now a trickle) we
keep fish there and ever so often we go up there and give them
some corn, one day I found a huge dead snake, floating in the
water, when I told my DH he said go and get a long fork and if you
stand on my shoulders you can fish it out so it won`t contaminate
the water so this is what I did . He couldn`t see it because I usually
climb up like a cat and balance on the top with my elbows ,
anyway I leaned over, standing on his shoulders and managed to
swerve it near by, I started to lift it out but it was so heavy it was
very hard , my DH looked up to see why I was taking so long and
saw this huge snake descending on him and got such a fright he
made a runner , I lost my balance and fell straight in to the tank,
yuck , lucky for me the water was high enough for me to be able to
cling to the side and after a while heave myself out but that snake
was eight feet long and had a body thick like a mans lower leg it
probably was bloated but even so It was big . We are not supposed
to have snakes like that here, something to do with there brains
explode at lower levels,in which case it might be of the water snake
family , who knows , during the night another animal came and ate
half of it .
so no snake skin shoes or handbag.
End of story
:)
Jenny in Italy.
Jenny Pizi
***********
jenpizi@tin.it
