Rattled

 

(Isn’t this the most perfect song for this post? hah!)

Two weeks ago we found a very large snake skin on the gravel road coming into our neighborhood. Looks like a Bull Snake shed it’s skin. And that’s ok. We kind of like Bull Snakes around here.

 

And I about jumped out of my skin when I found a very large Bull Snake inside my water meter box last week.

(Thank goodness my friends Renee and her husband Greg were here…..or I might have ran a few miles down the road screaming from fright!)

But it didn’t bother me at all that Greg scooped up the Bull Snake and released him into a nearby shrub. As long as the snake left me alone, I was happy to leave it alone, too.  (That’s rust, not blood on that pole)

Recently my neighbor’s two miniature collies were barking up a storm, which is unusual for them. So I went over to investigate, since I knew my neighbors weren’t home and I wanted to make sure their dogs were safe.

Immediately I discovered the source of their barking: a Bull Snake who was holding his ground and not wanting to leave, even though he was being cussed out by a pint-sized fluffy pooch.

And even though the Bull Snake seemed to be coming after me, I knew he was just trying to escape, and I was ok with that.

Live and Let Live.

Like I said before, we like Bull Snakes around here. They are the rattlesnake’s main predator, and we don’t want rattlesnakes around our homes. Folks around here have been known to relocate a bunch of Bull Snakes to their property just to control the rattlesnake population.

We haven’t had to do that…..yet.

In the three years we’ve lived here we’ve never seen a rattlesnake anywhere near our house or land.

But all that changed on Sunday night.

On the same gravel road that we found the snake skin recently, we were driving home at night and I saw too late that a snake was on the road. After driving over it, I backed up and immediately knew that the snake looked different than our resident Bull Snakes.

The tail didn’t look pointy and the head looked triangular. And it was a different color and shape, too.

Unfortunately, I had driven right over the middle of it’s body and it was crushed and suffering. So I backed up and centered my tire over it’s head and ended the creature’s suffering as I drove forward.

The next day, I took a walk up the road with my camera just to have a look and be sure of what I saw the night before.

(What kind of rattlesnake is this? It is only about 18”-20” long and it doesn’t have a ‘coon tail’, so I don’t think it’s a Diamondback. I’m guessing it’s a Northern Mojave, or a Prairie Rattlesnake. What do you think?)

               (Internet photo of a Northern Mojave Rattlesnake)

I was kind of hoping it was a Bull Snake, even though I’d never kill one because they are so useful, and of course, aren’t venomous. But if I had driven over a rattlesnake, even if it was now dead, that meant that rattlers had moved into our neighborhood.

And that isn’t good news.

As much as I respect nature and understand that all living things have a place in the ecosystem and they deserve to live……I just can’t accept rattlesnakes living and hunting around my home, with my kidlets and animals outside, too.

(Watch this video of a Prairie Rattlesnake…..**Warning!** You might require a change of panties afterwards!!!!)

I’m just not as noble and as brave as Mikey and Linda are, to capture and relocate rattlesnakes they find on their property.

I don’t mind it when a Bull Snake claims our front porch as his own and defends it loudly. But a rattler is just not welcome on our front porch…ever.

So, hopefully this dead rattlesnake is the last one we ever see out here………..

That’s not too much to ask, right?