My Latest Snake Story

[dwco5051]

A couple of days ago I left my skidsteer sit down besides my woodshed. The next morning I go down, start it and proceed to go down my lane to where I had some wood split ready to bring back to the shed. Out of the corner of my eye I catch something hanging down from the overhead. I think it must be a loose wire or piece of headliner trim but now it is against my ear and touching my neck. Since I was at the switch back I just turned my eyes and not my head and realized it was a snake coming out of the heater vent in the headliner. I could see enough of it that I was 95% sure that it was a black rat snake but the other 5% said try not to startle it. My dog was running down the lane ahead of me and as my constant companion when I am working outside I always talk to her even when I know she can?t hear me. I do remember saying out loud ? Oh S**T Ella, it?s a snake.? After over twenty years in the Navy in retrospect I think now I could have been much more expressive than that.

Thankfully I repaired the parking brake back in the Spring so I QUICKLY undid the seat belt, set the brake, opened the door and made my exit. Now about two feet of snake is swinging free. Next it swung over and stuck about four inches of itself out through the metal lattice on the side of the cab and then stopped. Now I I could positively identify it as a black rat snake. I had training handling snakes in the past but my tongs and snake hook were put in the shop several years ago and if I walked back to the shop and tried to find them and then came back down I wouldn?t know if it left the area or retreated back into the head liner and heater area. Got a hold of it close to the hole it came out of and pushed it toward the side and it went through and to the ground. Measured it and it was almost exactly four feet long.

I can see why the snake would be there because the vents are about three inches in diameter and must have looked like a good place to find a nest of baby birds or mice. Made the mistake of telling my wife what happened and was informed that not only will she never haul wood up from the shed but she will never get on the machine again.

Here are pictures of both the black phase timber rattler and the black rat snake and you can see when one is hanging only about four inches from my 78 year old eyes 95% was the best I could do.

 

[sanity1676]

And THAT is why I always have a gun in my pocket, even at home. A 22/9/38 would have dispatched that snake quicker than you can say "new hat decoration"
Lol

 

[DeepCMark58A]

So happy to live in an area that has zero poisonous snakes.

 

[DeepCMark58A]

And THAT is why I always have a gun in my pocket, even at home. A 22/9/38 would have dispatched that snake quicker than you can say "new hat decoration"
Lol

You would fire off some shots inside the cab of the skid loader?

 

[MTboatguy]

You would fire off some shots inside the cab of the skid loader?

If it was between me and a snake, you can bet your sweet bippy I would!

 

[DeepCMark58A]

If it was between me and a snake, you can bet your sweet bippy I would!

Overreacting with a handgun is never good.

 

[sanity1676]

You would fire off some shots inside the cab of the skid loader?

Snake shot. It wont penetrate metal, pretty quiet and kill snakes dead within 15 feet. Like a number 7 birdshot from a pistol. Here in FL theyre everywhere around the farm. Pretty safe to me. Ive used normal JHPs when i was up on the tractor and found a diamond back in the grass while i was working on stumps.

 

[MTboatguy]

Overreacting with a handgun is never good.

When I lived in snake country, I carried snake loads, but I would still rather repair damage to my machine then my body, I have been snake bit, it is not a fun experience. Even snakes that are considered harmless such as garden snakes can make you quite ill if you are sensitive to their saliva, a friend of mine when we were young lost his son to a garden snake bite.

 

[DeepCMark58A]

Did not know snake loads imagine a judge would be a good carry gun based on the 410 loads available.

 

[dwco5051]

And THAT is why I always have a gun in my pocket, even at home. A 22/9/38 would have dispatched that snake quicker than you can say "new hat decoration"
Lol

Since it was brushing the side of my head with its head on my shoulder that would have not been an option. Shooting the snake off my head with my support hand would not have occurred to me. I would like to preserve as much of my wrinkled face and the small amount of hearing I still have. I don't mind the snakes I do have around which are mostly black racers and eastern black rat snakes as they keep the rodents down. The white footed mouse is the main vector for Lyme disease and I live in North Central Pennsylvania which now is the Lyme capital of the US. My wife even tolerates the garter snakes in the flower beds unless they are caught eating her bug eating toads. When the toad population seems to go down I will catch and move a few way out into the woods.

I live in the middle of the woods and if I am more than a hundred yards from the house I normally carry and I will take care of animals that either eat chickens (raccoons) or seem sick as rabies is also a problem around here. Possums I leave alone as they are constantly grooming themselves and also keep the ticks down by eating the ones they pick up.. If they start getting around the chicken runs it is a different story. Even when I was still working and out in the woods and along the streams daily it was rare to see a rattler. Maybe one or two at the most a year and that would be way out in the boonies.

 

[sanity1676]

Since it was brushing the side of my head with its head on my shoulder that would have not been an option. Shooting the snake off my head with my support hand would not have occurred to me. I would like to preserve as much of my wrinkled face and the small amount of hearing I still have. I don't mind the snakes I do have around which are mostly black racers and eastern black rat snakes as they keep the rodents down. The white footed mouse is the main vector for Lyme disease and I live in North Central Pennsylvania which now is the Lyme capital of the US. My wife even tolerates the garter snakes in the flower beds unless they are caught eating her bug eating toads. When the toad population seems to go down I will catch and move a few way out into the woods.

I live in the middle of the woods and if I am more than a hundred yards from the house I normally carry and I will take care of animals that either eat chickens (raccoons) or seem sick as rabies is also a problem around here. Possums I leave alone as they are constantly grooming themselves and also keep the ticks down by eating the ones they pick up.. If they start getting around the chicken runs it is a different story. Even when I was still working and out in the woods and along the streams daily it was rare to see a rattler. Maybe one or two at the most a year and that would be way out in the boonies.

Next to your head is a different story lol. Figured you were meaning a few feet away and it crawled unti the dirt.