I DON’T LIKE SPIDERS AND SNAKES

Yesterday was eventful on Joyeful Acres.

Do you remember the song “Spiders and Snakes” by Jim Stafford?  Well it was weighing heavily on my mind last night.  It was after midnight and I couldn’t go to sleep….my mind was filled with images of spiders and snakes…and I don’t like them.

I’m making a lot of changes in the yard to try to make it easier to take care of as I get older.  I’ve taken down the picket fence around the huge garden we had, sold the grow boxes, moved the garden shed and am now trying to spread the huge mounds of dirt and logs from the old grow boxes.  I’m planting a few vegetables in containers around the sides of the house, so some of the dirt is being moved there.

Living in the country and being surrounded on three sides by woods gives me a lot of peace and quiet, but it also provides a lot of critters.  As some of the pots and equipment have been out in the garden since last summer, and the grass is fairly tall between the grow boxes, I’ve encountered a lot of things I would rather not see.

Yesterday I worked about eight hours out in the yard moving things around, transplanting, planting, etc.  I encountered a huge nest of fire ants with tons of eggs under one pot I moved.  I’m pretty used to them.  I put some killer on them and moved on.  I was quick and no stings.

At one point as I walked across the yard I saw what looked like an extension cord…but black.  SNAKE!  I HATE SNAKES.  I went to get a tool to kill it and before I could get back, it had slithered into my front flower bed.  The thought of weeding at some future date and that thing being in there terrified me.

Later I was emptying a container of dirt into the wheelbarrow when a ginormous spider with a huge white egg came crawling from the side of the container.  After about five hits I think I killed it.

Later I was sitting in the swing in the back yard drinking a G2 when movement caught my eye to the right of where I was sitting.  SNAKE!!!  AGAIN!!!  It slithered through my fairy garden and then went inside a flower pot, and then back out.  I ran for the shovel.

This bugger was very long and as I approached it, it kind of recoiled and looked at me like it was going to strike.  It scared the crap out of me!  I thought I was going to have to change my underwear!   He was so long I would have to get very close to get him with the shovel.  As he slithered and recoiled again, I finally threw the shovel at him.  He ran off among the fire pit, wheelbarrow and tools.  I couldn’t see him anymore.  Lord only knows if he is taking up in the fire pit where I have been stacking fallen branches from the yard.  I wonder if when I have a fire next time I might have roasted snake.

I know black snakes are supposed to be good for killing mice and poisonous snakes, but I have a lot of birdhouses often filled with bluebird eggs or babies.  I even have a wren who has built a nest in the carport.  I know the snakes like to eat the eggs and birds and I’d rather have the birds any day…so I’ll pass on the benefits of having a black snake around.

This snake scared me because it looked longer, rose up a bit at one point and actually had a blue tint to it.  I wondered then if it was a black racer.  I can remember seeing my mother chased by a black racer.  She was in the back yard hanging out clothes and we were on the porch.  Mom began to scream and run and this snake rose up and was chasing her with his head up above the tall grass as he slithered…more like “ran” at a pretty swift pace after my mom.  It was terrifying!  We kids were on the porch witnessing this and screaming “Mama!!!  Mama!!!”  We probably freaked the snake out with all the noise.

I think I wish I were more like my Grandma Spencer in some ways.  She was a tough ol’ bird.  She lived in an old, ramshackle type of house with visible holes sometimes in the floor.  I remember on one visit hearing her talk about snakes sometimes crawling in the house through those holes.  I was always very nervous when we visited or when I spent the night.  Visions of snakes slithering up into the bed with me and feeling its cold body against my skin scared me to death!  Granny never expressed any fear when she talked about it.

Once when I was about six or seven, I spent the night with Granny.  My uncle was plowing an area for her to garden and needed a pile of branches moved.  She and I went to the field and starting moving the branches.  All of a sudden I went to pick up one branch and it MOVED…then its head spread out.  SNAKE!!!  I was screaming and crying like a maniac.  Granny looked at me and said “Stop your screaming! It’s just a snake!”  With that she took a nearby hoe, shopped its head off and threw it deeper into the woods.  Wow!  Granny was now my superhero!!!  We went back to work as I thought about what a brave and fearless woman my grandmother was.

After just a few minutes, Granny began to scream just like I had earlier and jumped back.  Now this woman had just fearlessly faced a snake without even a flinch.  If she’s screaming now, it must be something that’s going to kill us for sure.

I ran to where she stood and asked what had she had seen.  She pointed to a branch and screamed….SPIDER!  This woman had no fear of snakes but was terrified of an easily squishable spiker.  I killed it and we went back to work.  My six year old mind couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.

I wish I had Granny’s comfort level with snakes.  I see one and the image just sticks in my mind.  Mice get in the house sometimes.  Would a snake come in here looking for mice?  I guarantee you if that happens, this old gal will have a heart attack for sure.

I remember last fall before we went on our honeymoon, Art had two encounters with a black snake lying on the rocks at the base of our side porch.  He was afraid of snakes too and he would come in the house and get something small and throw it at the snake.  I always wondered if the snake was living under that side porch.

Uncle Allen had one that lived in his well house at his home in Virginia.  He would see it anytime he went in the well house and he said the snake seemed to get used to him.

I need to go work in the yard this morning, but am sure dreading any possible sightings…especially as I sit here listening the birds fussing about something outside.  I remember when I lived in Kentucky a bird was making a horrible fuss outside.  My husband said, “I’ll bet there’s a snake out there.  The birds fuss like that to alert the other birds.”  He went outside and checked, sure enough…SNAKE!

I wish someone would invent a fence to put around your yard to keep snakes out.  I have terrible visions of them crawling into my carport and up into my car engine. I’ve seen too many videos of snakes coming out of consoles while someone is driving.  Black snakes are definitely not harmless if they scare you to death or cause you to have a wreck!

Yep, Jim Stafford’s song nailed it….“I don’t like spiders or snakes!”