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There are more TV sets in the US than there are people in the UK
And Now You Do
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30:33, Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.
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Poisonous snakes are a fact of life around Kerens. As far as I know there are copperheads, cottonmouth moccasins, rattlesnakes, and a small snake we used to call a ground rattler. If you are a herpologist (snake expert), maybe you can think of some more, but these four are plenty for me!
Probably the best thing you can do as far as snakes are concerned is to leave them alone.
If you leave them alone, you are not likely to get snake bitten. Start fooling around with them, and the opposite is likely to be true!
Actually, most of the snakes you will encounter are not poisonous, although some of the nonpoisonous variety may still bite you. I remember as a small boy once finding a small green snake that we called a garter snake. I captured this small and innocent reptile, and sought to make it into a pet. Unaware of my new pet’s dietary habits, I gave it a bean to eat, and he (maybe a “she”) compliantly swallowed the bean. The resulting bean bulge that occurred in my pet’s anatomy was the impetus for my pet’s new name, Beano.
I also remember chicken snakes. Looking these snakes up using Google, I found: “Elaphe obsoleta, a.k.a. the black rat snake, a harmless colubrid found in North America.” We never got quite this technical in dealing with snakes, but usually tried to dispatch chicken snakes with a hoe when we found them eating eggs from the chicken nests! One thing I can tell you is that it is quite a shock to reach into a chicken nest and find one of these long dark-colored snakes curled up in there—a shock you are not likely to forget very soon!
We never had too many meetings with poisonous snakes, but Dad and I had one reptilian encounter that I shall remember the rest of my life. The story goes like this: Dad and I were working in the brooder house—a specially constructed chicken house designed to house new-born chicks. We were building a brooder frame—a sort of large wooden frame about six feet wide and ten feet long with half a dozen incandescent light bulbs to provide heat to keep the baby chicks warm.
The brooder house was of pole building construction with an earthen floor. On the floor
near our work area lay a long strip of corrugated steel roofing—the same type of silver roofing often seen on barn and farm building roofs. We had stepped on the metal roofing strip, knelt on it, and even sat upon it during the course of our work. Upon the conclusion of our work Dad decided to get rid of the roofing strip, so he picked up one end to drag it outside the building.
There it was—an immense copperhead snake! The snake lay curled in a hollowed out area which had been covered over by the corrugated metal roofing strip. Copperheads do not grow to great lengths, but the older ones increase in girth, grow fatter looking, and this one was huge, its circumference as large as a man’s arm. The snake had an odor too, a sort of cloying, sickening smell like rotten cucumbers. Copperheads are not as poisonous as rattlesnakes or the dreaded small coral snake, but if this huge one had sunk its fangs into you and released its full load of venom, one can only imagine the damage it could have done!
As is typical of its species (Agkistrodon contortrix laticinctus), this copperhead did not slither away like most pit vipers, but instead froze in place, allowing Dad to grab a hoe and dispatch the creature in short order. He cautioned me, however, that ordinarily we should leave snakes alone except when they came up near the house where they could endanger the family. He told me that snakes eat lots rats and mice, and that normally they will not bother humans if they are left alone.
I have had other close encounters of the snake kind at other points in my life, but none quite so terrifying as this one. The worst part of the experience, perhaps, was the realization that we had worked around the snake for half a day before even realizing that it was present. The best part of the experience was that the snake did us no harm, and I shall always remember that day working with my Dad as the day we did not get snake bitten!
Ivan R. Vernon
ivernon-ohio@att.net
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Average Score: 5
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