August 19, 2012 09:50PM
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Registered: 18 years ago
Posts: 1,666
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When I returned home to Alabama during a break in my MA studies in London some years ago, my hubby was getting the outside of the house painted. The night I arrived home, it was some 85+ dF, but as the painters had just finished the windows externally, the windows had to be kept open for the paint to dry. Exhausted after a 10+ hour trip, I hit the hay immediately after we got home.
The next morning, I awoke early (still on British time), and stumbled into the bathroom. My eye was caught by a shoelace on the floor, which I thought was a toy the cats had made of it. As I was about to pick it up, I realised there was
NO WAY any of the cats could have taken a shoelace off a shoe, so what the heck was it? Heading back to the bedroom, I grabbed my glasses, and took another look.
Sure enough, it was a small snake - by all appearances, dead, from some rather lively cat-play (you could see the puncture marks along the body). Being a good Southerner, I just decided - poisonous or not - it was time to get the hubby up. So, I stepped back into the bedroom with a cheery, "Oh, Bruce..." with the intended tone of "Get your butt in here, quick and
NOW."
It turned out to be a grass snake (which I thought it was, but as we have all sorts of beasties like copperheards and other nasties about, I took no chances). Bruce disposed of it, to the cats' distress (they wanted to play some more with it). But dry or not, I closed that window to the bathroom
immediately.
I
HATE snakes, and have since my Grandmother in South Carolina found a water moccasin in her dining room when I was 4 years of age (she had a lively time beating the devil out of it, until she bisected it with a shovel!). I never forgot the desperation in her tone when she told me to "Stay in the kitchen and don't come out."
I also became keenly aware of the beasties in the neighbourhood where Bruce and I lived in Birmingham, when I went out to get the mail one morning, noting the neighbour next door had thrown away some garden trimmings and an old water hose - that is, until the very long black hose
MOVED.
Bruce had to get me down from the top of the mailbox, after he heard my screams in the house. The "hose" turned out to be a (very long) black racer that someone had run over and it had crawled into the garden trimmings to die. After that, I always viewed everything around our yard with some apprehension, and one time caught a copperhead reared up and calmly looking me over as I exited the garage in the car once. I recall saying a silent prayer for that ol' devil snake be gone when I returned, and quickly closed the garage remotely.
I know what some of you will say: well, a grass snake, a black racer - they're OK. Can't fool me with that nonsense: they're
ALL dangerous as far as I'm concerned.
Thank the gods I live in the UK now: at least I have
only one indigenous snake (the common European adder) to look out for now, and it's going to be very rare to see that one. Even so, its venom toxicity is recorded as being relatively low compared to other viper species.
Katherine
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Hermione |
August 17, 2012 02:23PM |
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Hermione |
August 17, 2012 02:37PM |
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Roxana Cooper |
August 18, 2012 10:21AM |
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Katherine Griffis-Greenberg |
August 19, 2012 09:50PM |
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Hermione |
August 20, 2012 03:39AM |
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Jammer |
August 20, 2012 01:42PM |
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Hermione |
August 21, 2012 09:45AM |
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Allan Shumaker |
August 23, 2012 08:22PM |
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Byrd |
September 02, 2012 01:29AM |
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Hermione |
September 25, 2012 05:28PM |
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Roxana Cooper |
September 28, 2012 09:25AM |
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Johnee |
October 02, 2012 09:25AM |
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Jammer |
October 03, 2012 11:30AM |
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Roxana Cooper |
October 03, 2012 12:45PM |
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Johnee |
October 03, 2012 05:23PM |
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Allan Shumaker |
September 25, 2012 05:58PM |
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Katherine Reece |
September 27, 2012 09:51AM |
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Hermione |
October 04, 2012 10:43AM |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Johnee |
October 04, 2012 08:59PM |
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Hermione |
November 17, 2012 11:24AM |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Hermione |
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Roxana Cooper |
November 22, 2012 12:55PM |
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Roxana Cooper |
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Katherine Reece |
November 22, 2012 11:00PM |
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Hermione |
November 23, 2012 04:19AM |
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Roxana Cooper |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Jammer |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Katherine Griffis-Greenberg |
November 26, 2012 06:24AM |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Hermione |
December 21, 2012 04:11AM |
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Jammer |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Hermione |
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Khazar-khum |
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Roxana Cooper |
August 09, 2013 10:33AM |
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Khazar-khum |
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Byrd |
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Hermione |
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Roxana Cooper |
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Jammer |
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Hermione |
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Hermione |
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Hermione |
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Jammer |
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Roxana Cooper |
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Khazar-khum |
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Roxana Cooper |
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Hermione |
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Khazar-khum |
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Roxana Cooper |
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Khazar-khum |
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cicely |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Hermione |
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cicely |
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Hermione |
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Jammer |
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cicely |
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Hermione |
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Hermione |
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Rick Baudé |
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Khazar-khum |
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cicely |
November 30, 2016 12:16PM |
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Rick Baudé |
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Allan Shumaker |
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Jammer |
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Hermione |
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Roxana Cooper |
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Rick Baudé |
January 18, 2017 02:31PM |
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Roxana Cooper |
February 09, 2017 06:09PM |
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Rick Baudé |
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Khazar-khum |
February 10, 2017 04:27PM |
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Jammer |
February 25, 2017 08:13AM |
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Allan Shumaker |
March 30, 2017 04:06PM |
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Hermione |
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Hermione |
September 23, 2019 08:29AM |
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