Spring Critters

I have those in my shop too. Like yours they are always welcome. As are all non-poisonous snakes!

Yeah...even the "un-armed" ones can be a pain...but we get along:














Notice the New Attitude !!!!

Impressive Rat snake!

I’ve had a few of those fill up on eggs in the coop. I just take them back out to the woods.

I haven’t had any that big, surprised he fit in that little bird house. Sucks about the baby Martin, but hey you gotta eat!

Glad to see you did the sensible thing and re-homed it. Most folks just kill them outright. Seriously misunderstood creatures.

I have a soft spot for creeping things, mostly because they eat bugs and rodents. I can’t stand rodents at all.

That must have been quite a feat getting him out of the martin box -- must have been wound up pretty good. Looking at the traveling box, it's pretty obvious you didn't want him wandering around in the car while you were driving.

@Cribbs74 wrote:Impressive Rat snake!

I’ve had a few of those fill up on eggs in the coop. I just take them back out to the woods.

I haven’t had any that big, surprised he fit in that little bird house. Sucks about the baby Martin, but hey you gotta eat!

Glad to see you did the sensible thing and re-homed it. Most folks just kill them outright. Seriously misunderstood creatures.

I have a soft spot for creeping things, mostly because they eat bugs and rodents. I can’t stand rodents at all.

Yes...he was lucky that he encountered me...if this had been my big brother, the Martin House would have become a jagged shard of shredded aluminum by the time the shotgun fire ceased! AJ is literally terrified of snakes, and I always joked that if you were hiking with him and perchance stepped on one, your LAST problem would be the snake, compared to the hail of gunfire that would be exploding around your feet!

@andrew wrote:That must have been quite a feat getting him out of the martin box -- must have been wound up pretty good.  Looking at the traveling box, it's pretty obvious you didn't want him wandering around in the car while you were driving.

Yeah, I bent the door hauling him out...and I was amazed at just how much snake kept coming out of that little compartment!  



Yes, on the hauling box, I've relocated them before, and believe them to have one of the highest Muscle-to-Pound ratios of anything alive.

Many years ago, I was hauling two to the local State Park in a terrarium with a single bungee when they both made a break for it, bending it's top open.  I got stopped and corralled them before they disappeared into the van's framework.

In my youth, the blue tail skink (we called them lizards) was known to be venomous and a bite would lead to a sure and painful death.

"Them things is pizon, kill it!"  

Many met their death with whatever could be picked up, although BB guns were the preferred weapon of choice.  I was in my adult years before ecology became a word I was familiar with and the poor blue tails were demoted to simple bug eater status.

As a kid, I came to a slow realization that "Country People" don't always know much about the country.  But I DID know better than to challenge the goofy adults in my life.

At the EXTREMELY impressionable age of 6-7, my own beloved Grandma told me about this highly dangerous snake that could grab it's tail in it's mouth, form a circle, and stand up on it's edge.  Called a "Hoop Snake", it'd roll down the road like a barrel hoop, outrun a person, and bite them as it went by...and this was ALWAYS fatal!  I took it as gospel, and my somewhat over-powered imagination did the rest...still have the original image in my head.

Same for the famous "Joint Snake"...not a hippie pipe dream, but a snake that, if you were to chop to pieces without scattering the parts, would work it's self back together and come to life.

I won't even start up about UFO's, Zodiak, and Ghosts, "They're REAL!!!  You're gonna find out some day, smarty!!"