Gopher snakes are our friends

[Smart Red]

Never saw the movie. It's just that scene was discussed, referenced, and parodied so often I feel I remember it.

From gopher snakes to rat patrols, from alligator lizards to unicorns, from coyotes to red people, from vendettas to moose heads: where will this thread wander next? Personally, I like snakes in and around my property as long as they are not poisonous. And even the poisonous ones are more afraid of me than I am of them. I have never killed a snake -- not even the one in the house once -- but move them to a safer spot. They are among our best garden friends. And they NEVER eat veggies!

 

[Nyboy]

Red my turn to teach There is no such thing as a poisonous snake, there are venomous snakes. You can eat any snake and not have o worry about being poisoned .

 

[thistlebloom]

Good point NYboy. I guess we use the terms interchangeably without thinking of their meaning.

I like my little black garden snakes but I will admit I scream like a girl when they startle me.
I killed several rattlesnakes when we lived in CA.
The first was a huge one that was in a cluster of boulders my boys were climbing on. They were little guys then. They came running to get me and I grabbed up a shovel and ran to find and kill it. It was coiled at the base of a group of boulders that made a type of nest for it. I stood on a boulder about 2 feet above it and aimed to slice it's head off. Yeah right. The shovel just sort of bounced off it's neck.

I apparently was screaming but I don't remember that part. All I saw was this Amazon constrictor sized rattler rearing back, endlessly huge mouth gaping, fangs like a saber toothed tiger preparing to strike. With all that adrenalin in my veins I plunged the shovel down a second time and instead of cutting it's head off I just managed to pin it's head and really tick it off. Those suckers are pure tough muscle! And I probably had the dullest shovel in the county.
At any rate by keeping my weight on the shovel and screaming (to intimidate the snake you know ) I finally managed to kill it. Just awful. I will never underestimate a snake again.

All the rest I just shot.

 

[Smart Red]

Semantics, @Nyboy, mere semantics!

Of course, you are right. I stand corrected and bow to your greater use of linguistics. The venom is poisonous. As to snake, I've fed a snake or two to my aunt's chickens and taken a bite of snake myself at one Wild Feed Feast I put on with my fourth grade classes. Tasted a bit like. . . . chicken.

@thistlebloom, I am in awe. That's not a place to make mistakes. I am not sure I could have done a snake in. I can barely manage to slit a chicken's throat.

 

[Nyboy]

Thistle you are one brave woman !!! I guess there's not much a mother wantn't face if her kids are in danger

 

[Nyboy]

Here is a freaky fact many people are bitten by dead snakes, even ones with their heads cut off. The bite reflex is there for hours after death.

 

[Smart Red]

The "MYTH" as I heard it was the snakes can't die until the sun goes down. When we had snakes, timber rattlers, to feed to the chickens that was the rule we followed. Never tried to skin a snake until the next morning.