Unwelcome shop visitor

M.Griffin

M.Griffin

Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
460
I was sorting through some handle material and heard a noise. I look down and this sucker was about 4 feet from me. That gets the heart rate up quickly. There are a lot of them around here, but this is the first one inside my shop.

-Mike

Here is a pic of it lying next to what he will also become.....sheath material.

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The only thing we have to worry about here is the occasional copperhead. If I saw that thing in my shop there would be piss in my pants :eek:and atleast one .40 cal hole in the floor.
 
So how did you kill it?

I have no idea how I'd react, I'm not convinced it would be manly.
 
I keep a .22 revolver with snake shot for just such times. One head shot and the skin is good. I have killed 6 of them this summer, and that is without looking for them. If I went looking, I am sure I could fill barrel up with them by just turning over the concrete rip-rap in the field across the street. I hate those suckers now that I have two small kids running around.

-Mike
 
Precisely why I live where there's 8 months winter and 4 months poor sledding(well not quite), no snakes no spiders and no big lizards. Glad it all worked out in the end. Paul
 
About 6 weeks ago I found a 5ft rat snake stretched out atop one of the flourescent lights on the shop wall. Wondwered why I hadn't seen any mice or small birdss in the attic lately. Every once in a while I would hear a thump upstairs. Now I know what it was (BOG)
 
Now that's a good snake! Get it the only good rattlesnake is a dead one!:eek::D
Dang good eatin and with a little garlic and fried up just right well, just don't be reachin for the last piece on the plate when the lights go out!
 
http://www.yle.fi/player/player.jsp?id=236632&locale=
Here's how to prepare it !! I don't understand the language either ! And there's another on that website showing how the Finns make reindeer soup !
I've had three snakes in my house the last a blacksnake but of course I don't have any mice ! All snakes are protected here in NY.
 
I am lucky to have black snakes around the property. I see them very often. In early spring two years ago, I was wakened by a noise at about 2 am. I discovered a 4ft female blacksnake in the laundry room. She was apprehended and I took her to my shop. I returned to the house and heated a cup of last nights coffee, turned off the lights and waited. About 45min passed and I heard another noise. Flipped on the lights and found the male in the same exact spot as the female. He was taken to my shop also.
The next morning, I discovered my dryer vent cover had come off the vent pipe. I replaced the vent cover and secured it with some caulking. The snakes spent most of the day in connubial bliss in the shop. I left the door open and sometime later the happy couple departed.
I am married to a country girl and she thought the whole event was funny. However she did suggest that I make sure the dryer vent was secure.
 
I would thin the things out a little, probably a lot, if I had small children around and that many poisonous snakes in the neighborhood. No law is worth a child getting bitten by one of those. I don't believe in moving the things either. It is the people that are messing with them that get bit most often.

I don't know how old your children are, but when the time is right you might want to sit down with them and have a long talk about what they should do if they see one. There are too many shows on TV with people handling snakes like they are harmless and can be pets. I would not want my boys to depend on information they are getting from some "TV expert" on how to deal with a snake encounter of any kind. Getting bit by one is going to be a very painful and ugly way to check out.
 
Well, it's not my backyard, but it's only about an hour and a half away:

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Maybe a closer look....

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Abilene's rattlesnake roundup pulls a lot of these guys out of the ground, but it doesn't even make a dent in the population. There's been some BIG dens found with literally hundreds of snakes. Sometimes, they take up residence in old coyote dens or prairie dog holes. You gotta be careful when hiking through the back-country lest you stick your foot into one of those dens.

Amazing that there's millions of these things not more than an hour and a half away, but I haven't seen one around my house in 20 years. They pretty much stick to the lake bottoms up here on the flats of farm country.

Glad you're ok!

--nathan
 
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