Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Blog Thread 5: A New Beginning
LeeC:
Today we were building a swing set for the kids. The directions are a bit weird. It made us build different parts of it (the swing set part, the slide, the "rock" climbing wall, and the tower) separate and in a weird order. It was getting late and we were not going to be able to finish it. The tower frame is built and the slide, rock climbing wall, and swing set part have yet to be attached. I was moving the swing set part closer to the deck so it wouldn't block the sprinklers tomorrow morning. My 2yo daughter was close by trying to help. I placed the equipment on the ground when in a flash a snake lunged and snapped at me! I only really saw the gaping moth and off white yellowish belly. I snatched up my daughter and yelled for my wife that there was a snake.
I am putting the rest of the story in a spoiler as the snake is now sleeping with the fishes (in the garbage can outside) and I know some people don't want to hear about any violence, even toward snakes.
(click to show/hide)My daughter loved all this! She was yelling "snake! snake! ssssssssssss. Snake!" Just so excited. We stood their arching over it, just looking at it curiously. The snake coiled up in the grass, in what looked like a classic snake defensive posture. My wife came out and I gave my daughter to her to take inside while I kept my eyes on it. Not wanting it to get away. I asked my wife to get the garden hoe so I could kill it. It was also getting dark so I asked her to get my glasses toot. She came out and gave them to me, but my 2yo came out too (with a tissue, thinking I was going to dispose of it like a spider). I yelled at her to get back in the house. She ran back in and cried in a corner, thinking I was mad at her. I put on my glasses and grabbed the garden hoe, but I lost sight of it.
I stood there for awhile. Scanning the grass. Waiting for it to move or just to catch a glimpse of it. I reached out with the hoe and lightly raked the ground to see if it would move or lunge again, but nothing happened. So I stood there vigilantly for about 10-15 solid minutes. Something caught my eye. A grayish scaly tail! I chopped at it and where I assumed the rest of the serpent could be. I raked it out and it was dead. Cut into 3 pieces. I am not sure on the policy of showing dead animals here, so I'll leave a link below and leave it to the discretion of the mods and/or anyone who wished to view it.
https://i.imgur.com/HSIKrhs.jpg
I vaguely remember something about snakes will sometimes still be alive and snap at you even after you cut it in half. I went the cautious route and used the garden hoe to put it on a piece of cardboard and put it into a grocery bag to dispose of it. I went inside and consoled my daughter, reassuring her that I wasn't mad and I just wanted to keep her safe. We had pizza and she was alright. Later my wife and I looked up different snakes in Massachusetts and came to the conclusion that it was an Eastern Garter Snake. I had a feeling it was a garter snake as we saw a dead one in the street weeks ago while on a stroll.
When I saw the one in the street back then, I though the circumference matched this hole near out gate (which is where this all went down) and I had a feeling we had one in the backyard. It could have been one of the ant colonies for the bigger black ants we've seen scurrying around the backyard, but I had a feeling it belong to one of these snakes. I didn't think much of it because I had heard that garter snakes were pretty harmless to humans and thought to live and let live since it would probably be preying on pest around my yard. That went out the window once it snapped at us. Chances are it was scared or we caught it by surprise, but there's no way I am letting my 1yo and 2yo play in the backyard if this thing is going to snap at them.
I think I found a similar hole on the other side of the house in the backyard.
Any tips on clearing them out? Preferably so I don't have to use violence?
cesium133:
Looks like a garter snake. They're basically harmless. They will try to bite you if it thinks you're a predator and it feels cornered, but the bite is non-venomous.
When I was a kid, I was a jerk who once tied a garter snake up in a knot...
Morituri:
Garter snakes are totally harmless. They try to bite if they get scared, but they have no fangs and no venom. People like to have them in their gardens because they eat the bugs about as well as pesticides and they're totally nontoxic. Heck, I was nine before I realized they weren't actually called "garden snakes" - it was how I'd always heard it, and nobody'd remarked on my calling them that until then.
We had garter snakes and bullsnakes where I grew up. Folks with a slightly bigger pest control problem like mice and rats, if the area was too small to keep a cat interested or too tiny for a cat to get into, they wanted a bullsnake. So people kept them in toolsheds and canning cellars.
Now, there were other species too; Rattlesnakes and Cottonmouth snakes were poisonous, and in a wet year, if one or two of them got lost we might see a Water Mocassin. Really scary, until eventually you realize your parents are right: Almost nobody ever gets killed by them except by trying to kill them. So they told us "be alert, back away, leave them alone." If they were really close to someone's house or something somebody might need to kill them, but otherwise leaving them alone works just fine.
Patrick:
So the last time I posted was June 3? Oh lawd
Okay. So the preceding Friday, I'd gone to the BLM protest. I had picked up some friends of mine who I knew could be responsible protesters, both re: protest street smarts and re: COVID wisdom. We had almost left my town when they asked me to flip around, go back almost the whole way to my house, and pick up their friend Melissa.
That happened May 29. June 3 was our first date, and she and I have been inseparable ever since. We do the kind of cutesy shit I never used to enjoy doing, like cooking together, going for drives, going on dates, that kind of shit. It's a trip. I love it, and I love her.
I never expected that I would find love at a protest during a pandemic, but I guess I never anticipated anything that happened this year. Shit's been crazy. I miss playing gigs, but this isn't the worst thing ever.
Morituri:
Congrats!
Naw, finding someone you really care about is an awesome golden lining to what has otherwise been kind of a shitty year. Turns the whole thing right around, doesn't it?
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