bananimal

The rat snake I threw over the fence a while ago is back - hiding in the dead male flowers of the goldfinger. Waved my finger and he popped out about 6" and took a snap at me. Waved a stick and no response - neat huh? Yanked him out and threw him over the fence again.

The beady little eye is looking at you.


After a couple of pokes.


No more messin' around!


On his way to the field next door.

chong

Very nice pictures! What a colorful snake. But that'll just do it. One sneak peek at that thing, and my wife is all freaked out! We had a garter snake outside by the driveway that one of my kids used to feed with raw hamburger. When my wife discovered what he was doing, she freaked out and had him try to get rid of it. So every time my son went by the area, he would beat a stick on the ground. After a couple of weeks, we didn't see him again.

STEELVIPER

Nice! Very cool.

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CookieCows

Your snake is going to come back. A snake will travel great distances to go back to it's home. We learned that both the hard way and from local farmers around us.

We had to live in the old farmhouse on the property when we first moved here. Try finding a 5 footer curled up in your frying pan in the kitchen cabinet!! My husband killed that one. My daughter and her husband live there now and are still battling the snakes.

Old houses in the country .... the unpleasent side!

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bananimal

Samantha, a.k.a. mskitty,

You don't need to freak out about harmless little snakes like the rat snake. If they bite, just use an antiseptic wipe and some bacitracin and a bandaid -- some folks are allergic to neosporin as I have so painfully found out recently.

You got to recognize the poisonous ones. When I lived in Charlotte, NC, I used to run my bass boat by Copperhead Island on the SC side of Lake Wylie. Let me tell you, that area is overrun with poisonous copperheads and it got it's name for a good reason!! I fished elsewhere, and right away!

Here in S Fla we have Pigmy Rattlers, Coral Snakes, Alligators and very, very aggresive sharks - which I fish for regularly. I always keep a sharp knife nearby to cut the line if I don't feel I can get the hook out by myself - or even with help. It's funny as heck when I hook one on the beach and the swimmers bail out like crazy when they see it in the surf. And I mean 50 feet from shore!!! They just don't know.

To answer your question about the pic, the snake was wound up in the dead male flowers beneath the fruit stalk. Some varieties don't shed the male flowers and they provide hiding places for snakes, as I have just found out, to hang out. You must love your non-poisonous snakes - without them, all kinds of critts would attack your plants, your house with abandon - and you too!

Dan the B'mal

bananimal

CC,

What kind of snake was in the frying pan? If it was a rattler, it would have been half way there - that is, to the fryin' pan. Had rattlesnake scampi once, goooooood!

Love the good snakes, eat the bad ones!

Dan

mskitty38583

i use old fashioned mothballs for the posioness ones, and i have outside cats for the non venomus ones. i dont like snakes. i had a tramatic experience when i was 5 yrs old in middleburg fl at my grammies house. so to me a dead snake is a good snake. they sneak up on you, and i cant stand that. id feel better w/ the sharks and the gators.

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WELCOME TO THE GATOR NATION

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Last edited by mskitty38583 : 03-16-2008 at 10:03 PM.

microfarmer

I bring snakes (and frogs) to my house (in a snake free suburb).

Love the good snakes, eat the bad ones!
Love the good snakes, eat the bad ones!
Love the good snakes, eat the bad ones!

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My new hero...

CookieCows

It was a cow snake, non venomous but neither my husband nor I are very good at identifying snakes, especially in a new area so we were unsure whether it was a copperhead or cow snake as they have those same kind of markings down them. This was the third time he'd manhandled a snake from the house since moving there and I was the one that gave him doubts about what it was. He grabbed the snake and out to the back porch we go. He lets it go as it's squeezing his arm, I grab a shovel and he grabs the tail as it's racing away and it's fast. We almost loose it but I slow it down with the shovel and then he finishes it off. Then we are examining the head trying to remember how to tell, poisenous or non poisenous... round eyes or slanted? Shape of head maybe? Open the mouth.. fangs? yes... do they all have fangs? We discuss that for abit... we figure.. yeah they probably all have teeth. He took it to a neighbor ... Cow Snake. Then there was the time I was weeding the strawberries....... another shovel experience. I killed that bad boy myself. That was a black rat snake and hubby wasn't proud of me at all. Said I should have left it.

Yeah right

I don't like snakes either.

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tlturbo

Just because you have a fear of things doesn't mean you should go around and kill them all. At least learn what poisonous ones are in your area and how to identify them. Killing the poisonous ones in your area I suppose is OK since it is hard to remove them. But PLEASE leave the safe ones alone. Corn and rat shakes here in FL are usually pretty tame. And be glad that black snake wasn't an Indigo (hard to tell all the black snakes apart). They are a protected species in FL. and against the law to bother them.

And snakes do not SNEAK up on you, They are more afraid of you then you are of them. Given any chance and unless cornered, they will slither away.

Dan - we need to do some snook or shark fishing.
"Greenie" on the board lives in Miami area and is a snook fanatic under the bridges, etc

Terry

island cassie

Great pictures Dan and a lovely snake - I like 'em too. No poisonous snakes here on the island, just nice constrictors and some little skinny black ones that must eat lizards. Difficult to stop the Dominicans from killing them!

Cassie

bigdog

Sure is a beauty of a snake! Are you sure that's a rat snake? Looks a lot like the patterns on a corn snake to me. A colubrid nonetheless. Thanks for those great pics!

Frank

NanaNut2

What a beautiful snake! All we have here are garter snakes, and wandering garter snakes. I have to go to the local pet shop to get my snake fix ... lol. I'm jealous.

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NanaNut2

Bch Grl

Here's one I found in my garden last year!

chong

Pretty coloration! Timely for St.Patrick's Day! Probably descendant of one of those St. Patty drove out of Ireland!

Arachnid

A corn snake is a rat snake. It is known as a red rat snake.

All snakes have teeth ...4 rows on the top and 2 on the bottom. Some venemous snakes have 2 fangs(rattlesnakes, copper heads, cottonmouths etc) others like coral snakes have somewhat of a grooved tooth and have to chew on your to get the venom into the bite.

Just some clarification for a few things mentioned.

tlturbo

BUT not all rat snakes are corn snakes - there is a yellow rat snake too.

We have both of them here in S FL.

Arachnid

Agreed ... I said a corn snake was a rat snake. Not the other way around. There are black, red, yellow, gray ...just to name a few.

bananimal

Senor Excessivo,

Love your mantra of "Love the good snakes, eat the bad ones." Seriously though, I had rattlesnake scampi at "Lilly Langtree's, Law west of the Pecos" in some burg in the boondocks in NJ a long tiime ago - it was great! Followed by bison steak done med rare - best off-the-beaten-path dinner I ever had. Today I bought a Havaheart trap for the friggin wabbits that ate my pepper seedlings awile back. I'll get those wascally wabbits yet.

We're gonna have woast wabbit!

We're gonna have woast wabbit!

We're gonna have woast wabbit!

Dan

bananimal

Terry,

Let's go fishin sounds good! You're in the middle between me and Greenie. See what he thinks. My boat is too small to go offshore so let's see what we can come up with.

Dan