I just broke one of my personal rules

As I was sitting here, relaxing and decompressing from the day while contemplating a late evening bicycle ride. I heard my wife call my name, it was a sincere almost panicked call. As I rounded the corner she pointed to the floor and muttered "it moved". I leaned down for a closer look and there it was in the corner, nestled tight up against the baseboard and tile.

At first I wondered how it broke through our defenses. How it made it so far into the interior of our home is a mystery. Then I wondered what kind it was. This question was mostly rhetorical because I knew the answer. It is the same answer I give every time I run across one of these beasts that have been cursed to crawl the earth on it's belly for all eternity. It was a DEAD one! That was all I needed to know.

But, somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. This creature from the darkest recesses of my nightmares was so small I just couldn't take it from this world. It's size would have made a regular sized earth worm seem like an anaconda by comparison. At barely over 1/16" in diameter and maybe 1-1/4" in length it was by far the smallest snake I have ever seen.

My fist thought was to see if I could do like the snake charmers do but then I remembered I don't own a flute and my banjo would be a poor substitute. So, channeling the courage of Steve Erwin, I armed myself with a flyswatter and a paper plate. Bravely, I managed to wrangle the beast into my trap and evict it from my property. For the first time in my life I didn't slay the beast. That was it's one and only warning though. If I see it again, it's a dead motherberkeleyer.

Good for you! You may, MAY, get into heaven now!

Joey

Nice job. We catch and release all the time--lizards mostly with the occasional frog. An empty cereal box makes a fine catching tool. Why kill them? we figure.

David S. Wallens wrote: Nice job. We catch and release all the time--lizards mostly with the occasional frog. An empty cereal box makes a fine catching tool. Why kill them? we figure.

I wrangled this bad dude out of our warehouse. Bare handed!

Joey

Surprisingly, the cute little guy actually felt a lot like my buddies Chinese crested. Odd.

I'm fine with lizards and frogs. More often than not flies, bees and wasps get a gentle shoo out the door.

Snakes are a completely different story.

I'm glad we don't have that problem here in New England. I saw one snake this past summer. A so-called "garden snake" in the back yard. It quickly moved away. We also don't have any poisonous spiders. I hate spiders. My house and deck are "no spider zones," even if they aren't poisonous. I killed a jumping spider the other day with brake cleaner. Works well. Ever see a spider break dance (brake dance) to death?

I really like this post. The instant "zomg, kill it now" reaction to wildlife is so depressing.

Are you sure it wasn't an earthworm?

Gary wrote: I'm glad we don't have that problem here in New England. I saw one snake this past summer. A so-called "garden snake" in the back yard. It quickly moved away. We also don't have any poisonous spiders. I hate spiders. My house and deck are "no spider zones," even if they aren't poisonous. I killed a jumping spider the other day with brake cleaner. Works well. Ever see a spider break dance (brake dance) to death?

You killed a jumping spider? For what in the world reason?

Snakes eat mice, I like them.

In reply to stuart in mn:

Pretty sure I've never seen a worm with a forked tongue

Nick (Not-Stig) Comstock wrote: In reply to stuart in mn: Pretty sure I've never seen a worm with a forked tongue

Hmm, I don't think I've seen a worm with a tongue, come to think of it.

There's a snake that likes to sleep in my toolbox at the shop. He's gotten pretty good sized over the years. I expect it every time. Still scares the E36 M3 out of me every time.

Wife ran across one that size next to her grape vine. She yelled at me from the deck to check it out. At first I thought it was a worm, that is until I noticed it had eyes, mouth and forked tongue. Never seen a worm with eyes or a mouth let alone a tongue.

Usually when there is one that small there are others but in my case not around our grape vine. Hope you are as lucky.

David S. Wallens wrote: Nice job. We catch and release all the time--lizards mostly with the occasional frog. An empty cereal box makes a fine catching tool. Why kill them? we figure.

I miss the anoles that are everywhere in FL. Such funky little critters. Nature's breakdancers..

Dude! I had one of those in my house the other night. I caught and put it back outside. Thought it was a worm at first. Brahminy Blind Snake is what it's called.

Today I also rescued a squirrel from the clutches of my wife's fat cat. No clue how he was fast enough to catch the thing, it must have been drunk and passed out. I then put the little guy up in the squirrel feeder and as soon as I let go he immediately jumped to the ground and hit his head on the tree roots that made a really loud crack, poor guy. Got up and ran up the tree, so I guess he was okay.

There is a garden snake that lives against my house somewhere that has grown to quite a size. I like him. He keeps the bugs away. Just like the spiders. I don't hurt (most) spiders or snakes. That is my rule.

In reply to t25torx:

I don't think that's what mine was. It had a more traditional snake like head, and had some grey markings on the top of it's head that stood out against it's black body. When I attempted to trap it it raised the first third of it's body off the ground and moved surprisingly fast with a very pronounced side to side motion.

A snake that small means that there's likely a few thousand friends close by. There's no point in killing him. On that note sleep tight!

once they know that they're welcome, they take over

It looked very much like this only reverse the colors and much smaller.

In reply to captdownshift:

I hope you realize I'm going to be awake all night now

I usually have to rescue garter snakes from the pool skimmers several times during the warmer months.